The Best Winter Athletes of All Time
Winter sports are often really entertaining and fast, but most of the time cold. All jokes aside, winter sports provide people with entertainment and exercise through a time of the year which can get really gloomy (just imagine living in a city with no snow, but a lot of cold). Once snowfall start, every winter becomes a bit more entertaining due to winter sports and the possibility of betting on your favorite sports with the Ladbrokes new customer offer, so there are no dull moments. Snowboarding, various types of skiing, ice skating, you name it, you can practice it. For recreational athletes, winter is interesting. For professionals, it is their time to shine. Here are the world’s most decorated winter athletes, ever.
Marit Bjørgen – Norway
Half of the athletes on this list will be from northernmost countries, which is to be expected, as they have more snow and ice than most of the world ever sees during a larger portion of the year.
Marit is an expert in cross-country skiing. She won a total of 14 medals in the Olympic Games. She won across multiple Winter Olympics, namely in 2010, 2014 and 2018. Cross-country skiing seems like a dull sport but ask any skier who’s racing for a medal in the Olympics whether they are bored and you will most likely get a no for an answer.
Ole Einar Bjoerndalen – Norway
It comes as no surprise that the two most decorated winter athletes come from Norway. Bjoerndalen is a biathlon specialist. Biathlon is a sport where you combine cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. The rifle is shot from two positions, prone and standing. The athlete who has the best time wins.
Bjoerndalen won 13 medals. He competed in the 2014 Olympics but actually failed to qualify for the 2018 Olympics. 44 years old, also comes as no surprise that he isn’t able to keep up with the new generation of athletes.
Bjorn Daehlie – Norway
We should just give all the medals to Norwegian athletes, right? Daehlie is a specialist in cross-country skiing, though his time was in the 90s. He won a total of 12 medals, a single medal behind Bjoerndalen. He won all of his medals in three different Olympic Games. His career came to an abrupt stop after he had an accident with roller-skis.
Claudia Pechstein – Germany
To make things interesting, here is a professional ice skater, with 6 medals to her name, the most out of any ice skater, male or female. She also won the most Winter Olympics medals out of any German athlete. She probably would have won more medals, had she not received a two year ban in 2009. She was accused of doping. This ban made her miss the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Shaun White – United States
Finally, a snowboarders. Snowboarding made it into the Olympic Games fairly late, in 1998. Ever since that time, snowboarders had a very good reason to practice more, other than visiting the X Games tournaments. Shaun White has 3 gold medals, the most of any snowboarder in the world. He also has a video game named after him, Shaun White Snowboarding, released in 2008.
These are the best winter sports athletes of all time, or rather, the most decorated ones. It is difficult to call an athlete the best, because of different time periods, levels of competition and many more criteria.