Norway has three racers in the top four of the current World Cup overall standings, and they are among the favourites to take home more Olympic hardware before the Pyeongchang Games are through. Also, plenty of skiers have had success with little involvement with a national team. “They told me, ‘This isn’t an NBA team or something like that — you can’t be traded or sold to another team,’” Svindal said. On the road, the racers — national sporting celebrities in Norway — not only share hotel rooms, they sometimes share hotel beds. For parts of two years beginning in 2016, there was a kerfuffle that tested the Norwegian team’s noted harmony.

Source: thestar February 15, 2018 18:22 UTC