< Norway is dominating the Winter Olympics. What's its gold medal secret?

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The country of Norway has roughly the same population as the state of Minnesota. But at the Winter Olympics, the Norwegians are a global powerhouse. The Scandinavian country's athletes bring home baskets of medals every four years, and they're doing it again in Beijing. So why? Why is Norway so successful, and how can the U.S. keep up?

NPR's Brian Mann reports.

BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: When Tore Ovrebo, one of Norway's top Olympic sports officials, arrived in Beijing, he quickly laid down a marker targeting how many medals his country would win.

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TORE OVREBO: The medal aim is 32 medals - three, two.

MANN: That is an astonishingly high bar. It's sort of like a baseball manager coming into a game promising his pitcher will throw a no-hitter. But Ovrebo mapped out his game plan openly.

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OVREBO: So that would - means cross-country skiing, alpine skiing and biathlon.

MANN: Ovrebo's athletes are actually ahead of schedule. The U.S., with its vastly larger population, lags by half a dozen medals. So how does a nation with so few people do it? The Norwegians get asked this a lot.

BIRK RUUD: It's a good question. I mean, we're a country with a lot of good genes, I guess, or, like, good (laughter) - we work hard, and...

MANN: That's Birk Ruud, a member of Norway's freestyle ski team who won gold in the big air competition. He and his teammate Ferdinand Dahl say winter sport is just part of life in their northern country. It's something everyone does from the time they're little kids.

FERDINAND DAHL: We have this term that we're born with skis on our feet. Fun is the fundamental drive - a lot of hard work, I think, and dedication and skiing.

MANN: That culture has created a pipeline of skiing superstars. Sometimes Norwegian athletes are so dominant, so much better than the competition, other nations build strategies around the race for silver and bronze. Cross-country skier Therese Johaug spoke after winning two gold medals, sounding confident she could capture two more for Norway.

THERESE JOHAUG: Today I took the second one, and it's fantastic. But the Olympic is not finished yet.

MANN: There are some practical things beyond culture and love of winter sport that raise the game for Norway. For one thing, these sports, which are pretty marginal in the U.S. audience-wise, are big business in the Nordic countries. Cross-country skiing and biathlon are mainstays on Norwegian TV.

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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: (Speaking Norwegian).

MANN: With that popularity comes fame, sponsorships, more money. Norway also funds its Olympic athlete development programs with a national lottery.

Billy Demong is a former U.S. Olympian in Nordic combined, a sport that pairs ski jumping with cross-country skiing. He won a gold medal in Vancouver 12 years ago. But he points out his success wasn't followed by a pipeline of other American athletes reaching the podium.

BILLY DEMONG: Was there a group behind me? Absolutely, there was. Did they all quit essentially or retire young? Absolutely.

MANN: Demong, who now heads a team called USA Nordic to develop ski jumpers and Nordic-combined athletes, says the problem isn't a lack of talent, though he does think the U.S. needs a broader base of grassroots winter sport programs. He says there's just not enough funding to keep Americans in these sports at the elite level until they can mature and get really good the way Norwegians do.

DEMONG: Nobody's making any money from sponsors in these niche winter Olympic disciplines. We certainly don't have the income to be able to pay our athletes.

MANN: Demong says if the U.S. wants to compete, Congress needs to work with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to rethink funding programs for the kind of winter sports where Norway is cleaning up in medals. That kind of transition, even if it happens, won't produce Norway-style success for years. Meanwhile, the Norwegians are back on the course today, favored again in biathlon and cross-country skiing, with lots more of their best events still to come. That 32 medal goal - it's starting to look like a lowball estimate.

Brian Mann, NPR News, Beijing.

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