Norway, 150,000 square miles of Alpine terrain offers
a skier's paradise.
The sport was born here.
To this day Norway still dominates
the Winter Olympic Games,
tallying 329 total medals,
and nearly half of them gold.
With a population of just over five million,
Norway has the most Olympic medals per capita,
with one for about every 11,000 people.
But what are the factors that contribute to the team's
impressive trophy count?
I've come to Norway to find out
what motivates the young athletes
trying to keep the winning streak alive.
And over the course of this week,
I'll immerse myself in the diet, exercise and culture
behind the most successful
skiing competitors in the world.
(FEED THE FLAME)
Vital to any winter athlete's diet
is a rich source of fat calories
for warmth and energy.
A popular staple of the Norwegian cuisine is cheese.
Especially brunost, or brown cheese.
- There, she's coming. - Whoa!
- She's very big. - Hi!
So, do you think it's the purity of the food
that led your four children to become successful athletes?
Part of it, and, you know, good health
from the people before us.
When you have a little, small child
it's very necessary to give them
exactly what they need.
Organic vegetables, the children got lots of them.
Goat milk and goat cheese.
OK.
- That's the way! - That's how you do it.
Do you think the brown cheese
is eaten by all athletes in Norway?
Yeah, I think so. I think they need to have
the brown cheese when they put it in their bag
and bring it to all the countries they go.
Because they need this brown cheese.
They think energy, because there's lots of energy in it.
I'm headed inside right now
to Heidal Ysteri, which is a local creamery.
Can you walk us through the process
once the milk comes here?
OK. It's the dairy which fetches the milk
from the farms around.
It's put into that big pan
and cooked for about two hours.
And then we pump it into sausages
and press them in moulds.
- So this is it here? - Yeah.
You don't find it anywhere else in the world.
- Can I taste it? - Yeah.
Let's check this out.
That's amazing.
I can see how on really good bread it'd be delicious.
- Yeah. - Thank you very much.
At just 25 years old,
Anders Fannemel holds the ski flying world record
at 251.5 metres.
Or nearly three football fields.
I started skiing as soon as I could walk, I think.
I grew up on a farm in Hornindal.
My dad actually made the slopes around our house
with a structure all the way up to our cabin
in the forest kind of, so...
Your dad basically built
a winter wonderland for you as a kid.
So you got just a few trophies and medals here.
Do you want to talk to me about some of these?
The longest standing jump in Vikersund.
This one is from the first year
I was doing ski flying in competition.
Man Of The Year, but then I started to believe
that I was able to...fly.
When I started ski jumping, I got hooked by the fear of
doing the first jump
and then the joy of making the jump.
Is it dangerous?
I think it's dangerous. When you're on top of
the biggest hill, you're quite nervous.
You should be a bit afraid
and have respect for what we are doing.
What are the steps to qualify for the Olympics?
We're starting the season again in November.
I have to compete on a higher level from then
till the Olympics starts
to be on the team.
And that's it. I have to be among the top five in Norway.
It's a lot of hard work.
It's really tough to stay on top.
Motivation has to be 100%
because if you're not doing your best, you have no chance.
We have to train quite hard and not eat too much.
Today I'm meeting with Dr Ina Garthe,
head of the sports nutrition programme
at the Norwegian Olympic Sports Centre
to gain insight on how their athletes eat
and train for peak performance.
So what makes you love working with athletes?
With athletes it's like you have to hold them back.
You have to make sure that they are not pushing the limits.
They just want to do everything.
We are really concerned about their diet,
that they are covering every need to maintain muscle mass
and to keep you full.
A cross-country skier eats
four times more than a ski jumper.
- Four times more? - Yeah.
Wow.
(AVERAGE DAILY CALORIE INTAKE FOR A MALE IS 2,500 KCALORIES)
(CROSS-COUNTRY SKIERS INGEST 10,000 KCALORIES PER DAY)
Their performance will do down
if they don't manage to cover all their needs.
If we have a ski jumper, they don't want large muscles
because they have to be light.
So we have different programmes for each and every person.
For example, fish, which can be, you know, fat,
it's perfect.
You have to have fatty acids, omega-3.
The recommendation is that you eat fish for dinner
at least twice a week.
Fish is always a part of the dietician's plan.
With 50,000 islands and over 83,000 kilometres of coastline,
Norway offers some of the best fishing in the world.
And today I've come to the island of Tromsø,
200 miles inside the Arctic Circle,
to see what's lovingly referred to
as the world's largest fishing village.
So I've just arrived at a harbour outside of Tromsø
and behind me you can see
that the fishermen are bringing their boats up.
They're unloading loads and loads of fish.
Cleaning them, dumping them and then you can see over here
they're processing them to bring them into the city.
So we're going to talk to a fisherman named Paul
who's invited us out to his boat.
- Are you Paul? - Yes.
Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having us.
It's very beautiful out here.
And what do you do first?
First I go out for maybe two hours
and then I find my nets, it's a buoy with a flag.
It comes here and then the fish follow the net and come here.
I have some here.
- Oh, wow. What is this here? - This is cod.
- OK. - I'll serve this for you.
- Oh, yeah? - Yes.
- If you have time. - Do you cook?
Yes, I cook.
- Paul, that's so good. - Delicious.
- It's delicious, yeah. - OK, good.
Right, now we're on our way to the Meråker school,
which is a High School for exceptional athletes in Norway.
Kids come from all over
to pursue their dream of becoming a Winter Olympian.
So I'm excited to meet some of the teenagers here
who are training and get an idea
of what their day-to-day is like.
One fifth of Norway's Olympians started here
at the Meråker school.
Students from all over come to the Trøndelag region
to follow in the footsteps of
many of Norway's decorated competitors.
I'm here to see
first-hand what it takes to become an elite winter athlete.
So I see that each of these rooms are named after
different Winter Olympics, is that right?
Yeah, all the rooms. Vancouver 2010.
And this is Torino 2006.
Salt Lake City, I took three medals.
I took two gold medals and one silver medal.
So that was a very good place for me.
In cross-country skiing?
That was in cross-country skiing.
- And you went to this school? - I went to this school also.
So when I was a student here, I used a lot the same rooms.
A typical day, we have training from the morning up to lunch
before having theoretical lessons,
the last part of the day.
The trainers don't want to tell them what to do every day.
We want them to be independent, to plan their own training.
To find out what's working for exactly themselves.
The best feeling is that we have this freedom
to be out in nature and train
and don't be inside a gym, for example.
It just makes me smile. It's freedom for me.
Every morning you hit the slopes?
- Yeah. - First thing?
I hit the slopes right here. It's amazing.
It started from when I was a little kid. I loved skiing.
I grew up in a family where we were skiing
and we were going out in the mountains
and dancing and riding horses.
My father, he was an active skier as well.
So he is the person who has teached me everything
since I was a little kid.
Did you watch the Winter Olympic Games?
Yeah.
Any moments from specific Games that you remember?
The sprint team competition
with Petter Northug and Øystein Pettersen.
I could see how happy they were.
And some part of being a team.
Even though cross-country skiing is individual.
I can imagine how much hard work they both have done.
So, that's something I also want to experience.
Is there a good way to walk?
Your poles, they're going straight down.
That's good.
So are your toes always straight forward?
- Yeah. - OK.
Maybe you can try to stand in the...
- In the grooves? - Yeah.
So you left home, you live on your own,
you train every morning on the slopes
no matter what the weather is like.
Yeah.
You go to competitions on the weekends. Why?
What's this all for?
I want to become a very great skier
so maybe in some years I become
a world champion or an Olympic champion.
That's my dream.
- That's the goal? - Mm.
- That's the dream? - Yeah.
What would that mean for you to win an Olympic gold medal?
That's my biggest goal and dream -
to take individual Olympic medals.
So that would mean a lot.
It's not only the results and the gold medals,
it's more about pushing me, my own limits.
Hopefully I can do this as long as I want.
In Norway, skiing is a harmonious coexistence
between man and nature.
Even in sub-zero temperatures,
Norwegians' reverence for the rugged landscape
leads them outside at a young age.
The nation's pride, coupled with fierce self-determination
is what makes the people resourceful
and their athletes formidable.
I've travelled all over this week,
from the mountains to the coast,
witnessing the incredibly beautiful landscape
that lays the foundation of this active, healthy culture.
I've seen farms and fisheries
that power gold medallists and Olympic hopefuls.
But most importantly,
I've experienced the spirit of joy and independence
that keeps Norway's winning tradition alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment