The secret to Norway’s success in the Olympics
The recent accomplishments by the Norwegian team at the Olympics in PeyongChang were really impressive and made me curios to dive in a bit more in how the country develops athletes and fosters a culture of high performance sport.
I read several recent articles with interviews with athletes and coaches. There are some common themes that arise out of all the articles and I think really speaks to the development of long term success that the country is seeing in winter sports.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/24/sport/norway-winter-olympic-success-intl/index.html
Focus on Character Development:
Sport is used a tool to develop good people and the primary focus for young athletes is to find a sport they enjoy and can develop relationships and companionships. On a national team level athletes help each other out and the emphasis on team is high even in individual sports. Having shared meals is a big part of the national teams. I read about how athletes would make sure share meals as often as possible and talk about their achievements of the day. Coaches talk about the “no jerk” policy and that everybody has to respect each other and no one is better then the other. Kids will get involved in sports early on but no score is taken until they are 13 years of age. It’s all about skill development and a culture of having fun and enjoying the activity. On a national team level the standards are extremly high and physical expectations and commitment are priority.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/22/norway-winter-olympics-success
Culture of Winter Sports and Wellbeing
After a disappointing performance at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary Norway decided to invest into High Performance Sports leading in to the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer. A National Training Centre was established and government funding was allocated to the Centre.This made it possible to professionalize the sports more and have coaches work directly with athletes with the support of IST. Wellbeing is a high priority and Norway is seen as one of the highest ranked countries in the world when it comes to life quality. Interestingly a high percentage of the athletes also part time work in “normal” day jobs and already during their career set them self’s up for a career after sport. A healthy balance of winning and wellbeing is encouraged. National Sporting heroes inspire the next generation of athletes and rather then becoming soccer or basketball stars kids aspire to become an Olympic medalist.
http://www.olympiatoppen.no/page943.html
I was thinking about how this relates to my personal coaching and some of the lessons that can be learned from the success of the Norwegian Team. I believe that valuing character in sport is one of the most important factors and often get forgotten when focusing on pure performance. We let athletes get away with bad behaviours if the performance is there. Winning should be measured in how athletes conduct on and of the track and how people tread each others. Wellbeing should be above winning medals and I truly believe that in the long term the athletes who are committed hard working and team oriented will win the race. As a program I working hard on establishing mutual respect and a hard working environment that has “no jerks” allowed because no matter how good you are in your sport it does not give the right to be disrespectfully or even abusive to other people.
Hi Ueli,
I think some of the Scandinavian countries can be a good frame of reference for us in Canada, with these nations having similar parameters involving climate and for some geography. A close comparison to Norway’s Olympic success is Iceland’s performance in Men’s Soccer. As a country of 300,000 people they are currently ranked 22nd in the world (Canada are 89th), reached the quarter finals of the last European Championships and have recently qualified for the 2018 World Cup. Similarly, to Norway there is no secret formula just an obligation to development at grassroots level (no standings also until 13), with affordable access to facilities at all pathway stages and a commitment to qualified coaches who are fairly compensated.
I do feel that perhaps in North America we have missed the mark somewhat. A competitive business driven pay to play model has facilitated a competition structure geared towards measuring program success based on outcome. An example being, I have had two players leave our program (at 12 years old) in the last 6 months due to their parents feeling they need to be in a dominant team to be noticed and to develop. The club they have joined have removed themselves from local competition (with it being deemed inferior) and instead choose to travel out of province or to Edmonton (4 hours) for games. These players spent double they would have in our environment last season to play half as many games and significantly reduced minutes within those. But I guess as long as that team of U14s are winning they must be developing…….hmmm!
Hey Matt,
Thanks for your feedback and your shared experience from your club. Although I don’t have much knowledge about soccer it seems clear to me that the parents who choose to have their kids participate in the “dominant” teams are totally missing the point. It’s sometimes hard to drive a point if the the culture of the sport is just not at the point where people understand how long it takes to truly develop. I feel though that with Jon Herdman at the helm of Soccer Canada there are some good messages coming down the pipe. I feel you are doing just the right thing with your club and keep focus on player development and making it affordable and getting in the practice hours on the field will bring success in the long term.
Ueli, great blog and reflections on the Norwegian system. I do believe that the social infrastructure helps to establish sport as a meaningful pursuit for the country. Like Canada we do have some social infrastructures that could used to better support sport, but I think that we come up too short. There is likely a balance between capitalism (our US neighbours) and socialism. That said, there are things that we can do in Canada that are not being done. First, understand that athlete development is “long term”. We harvest our athletes too early and do not give a choice between being an athlete or moving into the work or academic world. Can’t an athlete do both? Some of our athletes do this, by working part-time jobs and in some cases going to school at the same time. A big take away for me is giving athletes opportunities to be athletes while making a meaningful contribution to work or school and providing the flexibility so that athletes can do both. I like how you have brought the reflection back to your own context and developing things that you can control. Building micro cultures is a key and having team belief is a foundation to success..
Hi Ueli,
I also was really captured by the Norweigan’s success at the Olympics. There are so many lessons learned here. My hope is that many people in Canada are inspired by this story. The narrative around youth competitive sport in Canada has a lot of negative undertones and I really hope that as a nation, we can step back and evaluate the experience kids are having. These articles really made me think about what I could do in my environment (and my family) to make sure sport is positive.
Happy to hear it had an impact on someone else similar to the impact it had on me.
Danika