Winter Olympic Close and a Spoilt Nation Grumble

Norway has been spoilt before for male medals, yet now it was the turn for the womens star performance.

I got a late app-beep from my Sochi 2014 android app which reminded me to flick on the womens 30km. There were the girls, and I though " hey they are warming up as a team, how cool the cameras are following them" before I realised they were winning by a country mile!

Despite the medal count being higher than the USA and Canada or any other northern climes country bar Russia, Norwegians seem to feel a little cheated by their earlier kings not getting much glory in both the Biathalon and the skiing alone.

There was no god given right to win, and there was a crisis in confidence at least in the waxing of both classic skis and skating skis, and maybe the choice of ski pre-bend for the days when both diplomatic answers and outright anger were shown.

Petter Northug has not on form, he was coughing and had a cold if you didnt quite notice. Sunby didn't have it in him versus three russians team-time trialling and on a big ego boost in the sprint. The male sprint and final biathalon events were poor. But other nations are strong!

Medals snowed down on Norwegian shoulders, many of which were complete surprises. That is maybe it though, the expected results in the big male events and to get an early dominance in "langrenn" were not up to scratch so there is disappointment in that Norwegians maybe feel a bit embarrassed for backing the wrong horses personally and through the medias continued belief in the sovereign powers of Northug and Bjørndalen.

Norway prove emphatically that per head of population it is the pre-eminent winter sports nation, and that is a crown which is for the forseeable two next OLs and VMs in the main ski sports.