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The Best Metal-Grabbing Games Ever: How a Tiny Nation Won the Most Medals (By Far)

Nils Lid Hjort

Abstract

For three Winter Olympics in a row, tiny nation Norway has out-medalled everyone else, in 2026 winning 18 golds, 12 silvers, 11 bronzes, i.e.~41 medals, compared to e.g.~12 + 12 + 9 = 33 for the USA, 10 + 6 + 14 = 30 for home team Italy, 8 + 10 + 7 = 26 for powerhouse Germany, etc. Never before have we [pluralis proudiensis] or anyone else won as many as 41 medals at a Winter Olympics. But how impressive is this, really, when we factor in that the number of events has increased so drastically?

The Best Metal-Grabbing Games Ever: How a Tiny Nation Won the Most Medals (By Far)

Abstract

For three Winter Olympics in a row, tiny nation Norway has out-medalled everyone else, in 2026 winning 18 golds, 12 silvers, 11 bronzes, i.e.~41 medals, compared to e.g.~12 + 12 + 9 = 33 for the USA, 10 + 6 + 14 = 30 for home team Italy, 8 + 10 + 7 = 26 for powerhouse Germany, etc. Never before have we [pluralis proudiensis] or anyone else won as many as 41 medals at a Winter Olympics. But how impressive is this, really, when we factor in that the number of events has increased so drastically?
Paper Structure (14 sections, 3 equations, 6 figures)

This paper contains 14 sections, 3 equations, 6 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Yes, let's watch the Olympics
  2. Sorting Metal and Counting Medals
  3. A Multinomial Process Approach to Medal Counting
  4. Norway, USA, Italy are Almost Equally Wondrous Countries
  5. The Tiny Country's Tiny Secrets
  6. Other Statistics-Olympic Perspectives
  7. Note
  8. Thanks
  9. References
  10. Appendix A: Medals & Olympic Points
  11. Appendix B: The Norwegian Medal Table, 1924 to 2026
  12. Appendix C: medal counts for speedskating, 1924-2026
  13. Appendix D: Speedskating medals, men + ladies
  14. Why the Olympics

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Norway at the front: Klæbo, Nyenget, Iversen, in the 50 km cross country race. Everyone else (in the 2026 Games) are lagging behind.
  • Figure 2: Medals won by Norway, in percent (black curve), through Winter Olympics history, 1924 to 2026. The horizontal line is for the post-1960 average 11.6 %, and the dotted lines indicate a 90 % confidence band.
  • Figure 3: Confidence curves for the three medal winning probabilities, for Norway, for Sambandsstatene, for Italy, with point estimates 11.8 %, 9.5 %, 7.5 %. 90 percent confidence intervals can be read off via the horizontal line. We learn that the three countries aren't that different, after all, as confidence intervals overlap.
  • Figure 4: How to win three Olympic medals: be good; be eager; do your homework; try different sports (e.g. orienteering and skating); take your studies seriously; graciously and smilingly allow your competitors to win (occasionally). She also has the Zivilcourage to say (VG, 23/ii/2026), contrary to public perception and cultural expectation, that she values her 2 silvers and 1 bronze more than the 1 gold she didn't win.
  • Figure 5: A tiny subset of an educated household's shelves with speedskating history, here associated with various Olympic Gold Winners: Friesinger, Grishin, Heiden, Holum, Jansen, Keller, LeMay Doan, Postma, Rosa.
  • ...and 1 more figures