Casper Ruud says Norwegian sport is like one big family

Casper Ruud says that the collective of sporting stars from Norway feel like one big family.

Ruud said that part of that sense of community comes from a number of athletes making use of the Norwegian Olympic Sports Centre in Oslo.

He added that Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki kicked off the big push for the other Scandinavian nations joining Sweden in produciong tennis stars and top sportspeople.

“Scandinavia is a beautiful place that we’re from and I’ve always found it interesting that the Swedes have had so many former world No. 1s, top 10 players in the world and they’ve had Zlatan [Ibrahimovic] dominating football for many years,” Ruud said in reply to a question by Danish motorsport legend Tom Kristensen in Eurosport’s Voice Notes.

“I sort of thought it was time for Norway and Denmark to start stepping up. Obviously with Caroline Wozniacki being world No. 1 and winning Grand Slams, she started the whole thing,” Ruud added.

“Norway are doing pretty good these days, Haaland in soccer, Viktor Hovland in golf, [Henrik, Filip and Jakob] Ingebrigtsen brothers in running, Warholm in running also and so on, and there’s still a lot of players I haven’t even mentioned yet in Denmark with Holger [Rune], there’s a lot of great guys these days doing well in sport,” Ruud went on.

“I don’t know about in Denmark but in Norway we have a very good community, we have an Olympic fitness centre that most of our athletes practise in and work out in. So any time I go there I would meet people like Karsten Warholm or former gold medallists in running or rowing and it’s always great to connect and be inspired by each other,” Ruud would say.

“And sometimes the Alpine skiing team is there lifting weights and I’m there doing running and we can chat and talk during our breaks so I think we have a really good training community in Norway,” Ruud said.

“I’m not sure how it is in Denmark and in Sweden but I think for Norway it’s a big part of the reason why a lot of Norwegians are doing well, it’s almost like we’re training together in a way even though we’re all doing separate sports and it’s really motivating,” Ruud concluded.

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