On track: How Norway became a powerhouse in world athletics

The country’s ll track and field stars have won 35 medals at majors since 2021

- Rutvick Mehta

Erlend Slokvik, sports director of the Norwegian athletics association, is a former ski-orienteering World Championships medallist. Athletics is the fourth sport he has managed as head coach or sports director in Norway, and he brings up a couple of stats to paint its strides.

Down in the grassroots, TINEstafetten, the world’s biggest single-day youth relay event for students between class 6 and 9 held in schools across the country, is unique to Norway. “This year, we had over 1,00,000 children running,” Slokvik said.

At the top among the elite, across all major athletics events from the Olympics of Tokyo in 2021 to Paris in 2024 (including World Championships and European Championships), Norway had Il athletes bring home medals. “35 medals, 20 gold,” Slokvik said.

The two ends of this arc reflect the growth of athletics in a country of about 55 lakh people and the land of winter sports. And at its heart lies the rise of athletics stars that have given Norway champions to celebrate outside of winter sports, football, chess and golf.

The defending world champion 5000m runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen and 400m hurdler Karsten Warholm have not only brought in a chunk of those 35 medals as multiple-time Olympic and Worlds medallists, they've also been integral to Norway signing off as the sixth best athletics nation at the Paris Games (from 10th in Tokyo) and with their highest tally (4) at the 2023 Budapest Worlds.