Nordic Nation: The ‘Brains of the Operation’ Episode with Øyvind Sandbakk

Here on Nordic Nation, we’re featuring back-to-back interviews with notable Norwegians. We previously connected with Marit Bjørgen and focused on the athlete side of the performance matrix. This time, we spoke with wunderkind sports physiologist, Øyvind Sandbakk. If you are new to his name, he is one of the key reasons Norway has remained ahead of the sport-performance curve in nordic sport.

If there’s an interesting question to answer with regards to things like double-poling efficiency, Sandbakk or one his students is on it. Yes, Norway has strength in numbers when it comes to cross-country athletes, but they also have a Sandbakk and a cadre of graduate students who keep Norway a step ahead.

Sandbakk serves as managing director at the Centre for Elite Sports Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. And as if he is not busy enough, he’s also head of research and development at the Norwegian Olympic Sports Centre (Olympiatoppen).

Sandbakk discusses how he became involved with research and how his research group has become one the premier nordic-sport think tanks.

Here’s a link for a comprehensive list of Sandbakk’s research.

For another interesting read, Sandbakk, along with PhD. student Guro S. Solli (Solli is the first author on the paper) explored Bjørgen’s training during and after the birth of her son.

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