‘Handball girls’ go for the gold

Norway’s national women’s handball team, popularly known as håndballjentene (the handball girls), assured themselves at least a silver medal at the Olympics in London on Thursday, after trouncing South Korea by a score of 31 to 25. From Kautokeino in the north to Oslo in the south, Norwegians flocked around televisions to follow their national [...]

‘Kayak king’ paddled to gold

Norway finally struck gold at the Olympics in London on Wednesday, when one of the country’s veteran kayak paddlers beat out his much younger competition. Eirik Verås Larsen’s Danish rival claimed they were knocked out “by an old crow,” while others were more gracious. Larsen, age 36 from Flekkefjord, capped off his Olympic career by [...]

Embattled ticket site strikes back

Norwegian online ticket agency Euroteam, caught in conflict over its sales of tickets to Olympic events in London, is back in business after promising refunds to customers. It still faces legal action both in Norway and the UK and was evicted from its Oslo offices this week, but its owners vow to battle police and [...]

Immigrant’s son wins big in fencing

Not many Norwegians had heard of Bartosz Piasecki until he instantly became a national hero on Wednesday. After a day of otherwise disappointing results by athletes expected to do well at the Olympics in London, Piasecki restored some honour for his adopted homeland by winning the silver medal in fencing. None of Norway’s favoured athletes [...]

Fencing saves disappointing day at the Olympics

It was another disappointing day for many Norwegians at the Olympics in London on Wednesday. Norway’s women’s handball team failed to beat South Korea, another Norwegian medal hope in swimming is now out of the Games, and a former rowing champion wound up in tears. Only a young athlete in fencing advanced. Rower Olav Tufte [...]

Sports fans stung by ‘OL’ ticket site

A Norwegian website that offered tickets to sporting events at the Olympics in London, called “OL” in Norway, has left customers who paid dearly for them without tickets after all. Hundreds of tickets that Norwegian customers thought they’d bought were seized by police last week, and a top Norwegian Olympic official is calling the ticket [...]

Handball victory offset other losses

Norway’s Olympic handball match against Sweden was a thrilling close one that left Norway’s goalkeeper as the national heroine on Tuesday. Meanwhile, though, the Norwegian swimmer meant to grab some glory of her own was disappointed, and a top hurdler dropped out of the games. Kari Aalvik Grimsbø saved Norway from defeat in the Olympic [...]

Flag-bearer outshone husband

Eirik Verås Larsen has won three Olympic medals and five world championships in kayak paddling, but he had to step out of the spotlight in favour of his wife Mira last week. That’s when she was the one chosen to carry Norway’s flag at the opening ceremonies for the Summer Olympics in London over the [...]

Cyclist proud of Norway’s first medal

Alexander Kristoff surprised his fellow Norwegians by being the first on the country’s Olympic team to win a medal at the summer games that began over the weekend in London. He’s not widely known outside cycling circles, but those who do know him weren’t surprised at all. “This is the result of an extremely long-term [...]

Royals in place as ‘OL’ begins

UPDATED: Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit are in London this weekend to lead the cheering sections for Norwegian athletes as the Summer Olympics gets underway. Norway has a team of 64 local sports stars taking part in what the Norwegians simply call “OL,” but it’s unclear whether any of them will wind [...]

New champion surprised everyone

There were no jubilant homecoming celebrations back in Norway after Henrik Ingebrigtsen won the country’s only gold medal at the recent European Athletics Championships in Helsinki over the weekend. The largely unknown young man who won the 1,500-meter race on Sunday evening flew off for altitude training in St Moritz early the next morning. Ingebrigtsen, [...]

Oslo sets up Olympic program

The City of Oslo, moving forward with its expensive application to host the Winter Olympics in 2022, has formally launched the application process, called it “OL-søknad Oslo 2022″ and transferred over the city’s boss for water and sewage to run it. Eli Grimsby will thus be the first “OL boss,” reported newspaper Aftenposten on Tuesday. [...]

Oslo to pursue an Olympic bid

The Oslo City Council agreed on Wednesday to fund efforts to apply for another Winter Olympics in the Norwegian capital. The application process alone is now expected to cost taxpayers around NOK 130 million, and work actually began months ago. The media hype, not least in major Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, has been underway since just [...]

Swimmers made a splash at European Championships

Norwegian swimmers put on their best performance ever in European championship competition, coming home over the weekend with three medals, two of them gold. The swimmers all claimed it was a tribute to their late teammate, Alexander Dale Oen, the country’s world champion who died earlier this month of a sudden heart attack. “I stood [...]

Norway’s greatest swimmer laid to rest

Hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral on Friday of Norway’s world champion swimmer and much-respected athlete Alexander Dale Oen. Not only were all 300 seats in his small local church filled, all 1,500 seats in a nearby public hall were filled as well, for those following the funeral service via video link. Oen [...]

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