My guess is that this will probably go down in history as the pinnacle of our achievements. In our favourite events, Nordic skiing, the Russians can't be kept out forever, the Swedes are due a good run in the future, and as far as alpine skiing is concerned, we might struggle a bit once Svindal and Jansrud call it quits. Some sports will probably never become "ours" (hockey, luge, skeleton, bob, short track speed skating, figure skating).
Not too sure about that. These will go down as our greatest games but a significant reason for that is that there are more events than ever before. The gap down to Salt Lake and Lillehammer isn't that big when you take total events into consideration.
1994: 61 events, 10 golds
1998: 68 events, 10 golds
2002: 78 events, 13 golds
2006: 84 events, 2 golds
2010: 86 events, 9 golds
2014: 98 events, 11 golds
2018: 77 (completed)/102 events, 13 golds so far
Total events will just continue to grow and a lot of the new events will be typical niche events which will benefit us big time. In ski jumping the women will jump in the big hill and there will be a mixed team event. Women participating in nordic combined is only a matter of time. Alpine parallel slalom is another new event.
We've hosted two X Games in two years and a third one is being held in May. This is a massive inspiration for the youth. There's a possibility the Americans will look back at this in 10 or so years and think "why the feck did we let them host the X Games, we've created a monster".
Because of our crazy depth in cross country, ski jumping, biathlon and nordic combined we will almost always be challenging for most team events and relays.
Yes some might be retiring (Svindal, Jansrud, Bjørgen) but equally we are seeing others emerging. Hirscher (greatest alpine skier of all time) will be on a downward spiral next time while Kristoffersen will be in his prime. Ice skaters have been our achilles heel (no pun intended) for years but have finally started performing. Our women alpine skiers are breaking 80 year old barriers. Klæbo could easily monopolise cross country for the next decade and there isn't much Sweden or Russia can do about that.
Regarding Russia, it will be interesting to see how they come out of this mess. I'm assuming they will be heavily reduced either way. As for Sweden, being 'due' doesn't guarantee anything. Just ask our national football team. Yes Sweden will have good periods but overall we have much better skiing resources and traditions. Almost half our population lives in greater Oslo or Trøndelag where you're never more than 30 minutes away from immaculate skiing facilities. Sweden can't match that. They aren't doing that badly by the way, almost won their third cross country gold today and have really impressed in biathlon.
So whatever total we manage this year I wouldn't rule out us beating it in the future.
