Winter sports
There is a lot of snow in Norway every winter.  So it is natural to go skiing in the mountains.  Norwegians used skis as far back as 4000 years ago.  Skis were the only practical means of getting from one place to another during  winter time.

A well known Norwegian  story of the Birkebeiners (Birchlegs) was that a man in 1296 saved the Norwegian prince Haakon Haakonsen, (who later became a student at our school, by the way.)  He carried the baby 55 kilometres on skis.  This route has now become a cross country track, and 6000 people join this race every year.

The father of Norwegian skiing in modern time is Sondre Norheim.   He designed a «wasted» ski, the Telemark ski. He combined ordinary skiing with jumping and slalom. Very few people know that the international word slalom is a Norwegian word from Morgedal, where Sondre Norheim came from. The first modern Norwegian skis were brought  to the USA by emigrants who crossed the Atlantic Ocean as early as in 1825. Skiing is a favourite sport among most people in Norway, and you can see people from two up to ninety years go skiing. There are also a lot of skiing instruction schools in Norway.

As you probably know our town, Trondheim, arranged the World Championship in Nordic events in 1996. A Japanese won the ski jumping event. The competitions brought people from the whole world to our city, something which we enjoyed very much.

Handball
Handball is one of the most popular sports in Norway. One of the best Norwegian clubs is Byaasen from Trondheim. They have several teams, one for each age group. Everybody from young boys and girls aged 6, to older men and women over 50 have a lot to choose from. The clubs play matches over the week-ends, so the sports arenas are full of supporters from early Saturday to late Sunday. Norwegian men's teams sometimes  play great against some of the top European  clubs, but it is particularly the women's team that has had an international impact on handball. They won the European championship earlier this year. This may be the reason why girls mostely play handball, while boys stick to sports like football and basketball.

Football
Football is a well known summer sport all over the world - also in Norway. For many Norwegian boys and girls, football is a very important hobby. They play football several times a week, and then they meet their friends and they have a lot of fun. In our city we have a lot of different teams for children from five years old up to those who can not run any more. The best team we have is called Rosenborg. Many people may say that Rosenborg is the heart of football in our town and for the whole country. Rosenborg has been the best team in Norway for the last ten years, and the two last years they have joined the other great teams from Europe in a league called "Champions' League". It is a league for the best team from each country, so then they travel around to different countries to play football against the best teams. Champions' League has not been just important for Rosenborg, but it has also been very important for our town. You can say that Rosenborg has given Trondheim a name on the map, and it has been very important for our town to get so much attention.

Rosenborg has been very important in our town by giving a lot of support to small teams in the area and to the local football organization. You can say that they are taking care of this sport, not only by their support to other teams, but by being a good role model. Like all good teams they have a lot of supporters, not only from Trondheim, but also from the rest of the country. A lot of people come to see their matches, live, and many watch their matches on TV.

Rosenborg is not the only "best team" we have in our town. The women also have a good team. It is called Trondheimsoern (The Trondheim Eagle) and is also the best women's team in our country. Trondheimsørn is a team which is very important for girls and women who play football. They do a lot of the same things as Rosenborg, but they are not as well known outside the country as them.

Our foreign ministry has published this article about Norwegians and Nature