2014 - 2015 Football Thread - Page 655

We certainly love our skiing, and during what we in Norway refer to as the "winter half" (pretty telling phrase there..), our top biathlon and cross country skiers totally dominate our sport sections, especially during championships. Our country takes a slight collective vacation during Winter Olympics, like, at my work place the bosses decided to postpone a meeting by 1 hour because they all wanted to watch the 4x10km cross country relay race last winter. And our skiing heroes, especially people like Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Bjørn Dæhlie and Marit Bjørgen (in case any of you are noticing a pattern, Bjør is not actually THAT common of a name-ingredient) who are great, win everything and are sympathetic to boot, get a LOT of media attention and get the best sponsorship deals in Norway.

I just found a list from 2014 of the 20 most attractive Norwegian athletes in terms of Norwegian sponsorship money (if I understand it correctly), and it makes sense from a "who do I see the most in advertisements and featured most heavily in media" point of view. Note that 2014 is a Winter Olympics year, so winter sports are slightly inflated, but it's really a landslide victory..

First three are Marit Bjørgen, Petter Northug and Therese Johaug. (top 3 cross country), then there's Aksel Lund Svindal (top Alpine skiing), Ole Einar Bjørndalen (historically by far top biathlon, arguably greatest winter sports athlete ever ), Tora Berger (top female biathlon), Anders Jacobsen, Emil Hegle Svendsen and Tarjei Bø (skijumping, two more biathlon).

Then in 10th there's Edvald Boasson Hagen (cycling), Andreas Thorkildsen (javelin throw. Great guy, he's wayyy more popular than the sport is), Thor Hushovd (cycling), Heidi Løke (handball), and then in 14th we have Magnus Carlsen. After that, another ski jumper, before in 16th place we get Brede Hangeland- the only football player on the list.

Obviously this shows that yeah, our winter sport athletes receive much the same media attention as Carlsen and Ødegaard.

At the same time however, there's a distinct difference. While we love our winter athletes, deep down, mostly all Norwegians are aware of the fact that the main reason why we are so incredibly successful at those sports is that we just care more about them than everyone else. Whenever a Norwegian manages to succeed at something that isn't a Norwegian specialty, they are quickly elevated to genius position. Norwegians consider Carlsen's achievements greater than that of mostly all our winter sport athletes' achievements, yet, because we don't have chess as part of our cultural heritage, he still doesn't necessarily garner the same attention. That being said, much the same 'collective break' feeling happened during Carlsen's first title matches against Anand as during the Winter Olympics. And in 2013, Carlsen also won some prestigious "name of the year" at this yearly athletic award ceremony.

As for Ødegaard, Norwegians do love football. And we've never fostered a talent even nearly as coveted as him. The attention he has gotten has been unique for someone his age, regardless of sport, but it's not necessarily any more intrusive than what our cross country athletes experience. Solskjær got a lot of it during his career also, but there's also a difference in that all our best football players reside outside Norway. The cross country skiers are right here - I actually met Petter Northug in the store like a year ago, and most likely, I've been severely outpaced by other professional skiers while out in the woods myself. Still though, if Ødegaard becomes even half what we hope he will become, then he's gonna be a distant first in terms of most appraised Norwegian athlete - especially if he heftily contributes to us finally reaching a championship again. ;p