– After Christmas in 2020, I could not take it anymore, the motivation was not at its peak, says Amund Hårstadhaugen (15) to news. In 2019, Amund was involved in both cross-country skiing and football, and news then met him at training with the cross-country team Runar. When news met him again two years later, only football applies to the 15-year-old. ENDED: Amund Hårstadhaugen (15) quit cross-country skiing during the corona pandemic. Photo: Private He is far from the only one who has stopped skiing during the corona pandemic. During the pandemic years, the Norwegian Ski Association has lost 17 percent of its active members. This corresponds to about 23,000 practitioners. Especially in 2020, the membership flight was large, as over 13,000 active members disappeared. The negative trend continued in 2021, when more than 8 percent resigned from the Norwegian Ski Association. Hårstadhaugen says that he lost his desire for cross-country skiing, and that the poor snow conditions did not make things better. – I stopped taking training seriously, at the same time there was no snow to train on, says Hårstadhaugen. Concerned about the future of cross-country skiing The decline in membership numbers worries news’s cross-country expert Fredrik Aukland. He believes the association must be better at facilitating, one should avoid losing more members. – We must be good at giving the clubs a framework to facilitate for children and young people. In my county, Vestfold, I do not think the cross-country sport would have been close to what it is, if it were not for the facilities here, even though we are also struggling. This applies in all large cities, extending the season is absolutely crucial as the winter has been in Norway, says Aukland. CONCERNED: Fredrik Aukland is worried about the membership numbers, and fears for the future of Norwegian skiing. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpix If you do not succeed, Aukland fears for the future of cross-country skiing. – I’m worried about the future of cross-country skiing. If the development continues further, it could mean that the national sport will have a completely different future than at least I had hoped. Secretary General of the Norwegian Ski Association, Ingvild Bretten Berg, is aware that better facilities are high on the priority list. – In the long run, it is clear that if the activity weathers because we do not have snow, then it will have major consequences. But precisely because of this, we have expanded our construction work at the same time as the club developers to ensure that we have snow where people live. To get people to get out on skis. Persistent problem However, development is not a new phenomenon. Since the peak year in 2011, when the ski association’s clubs had 185,000 active members, almost 40 percent of those active have disappeared. In 2018, the Norwegian Ski Association established an organizational committee to look at the association’s management model. In the committee’s report, recruitment is highlighted as a key challenge for the Norwegian Ski Association. COMMITTEE: The newly elected ski president, Tove Moe Dyrhaug, sat on the committee that evaluated the organization’s governance model. Photo: Ole Martin Wold / NTB – It is easy to sit in a committee to say how to follow up. But they pointed to just that then as well. They also came up with some follow-up points, says newly elected ski president Tove Moe Dyrhaug, who himself sat on the organization committee. – But then we must remember that the report was finished a week before the corona pandemic came and Norway was shut down. So it was not so good to follow up everything then, she emphasizes. Among the proposals for solutions the organizing committee came up with was strengthening the work in the districts and follow-up of the clubs. The Ski Association has taken this into account, says general secretary Ingvild Bretten Berg – We decided a year and a half ago to hire ski club developers. We are now hiring twelve people who will work outside the club, with the development of the activity. We have great faith in that, and we are really looking forward to speeding up, she says. – On skis you just went alone Back in Sandefjord, Amund is in no doubt about what makes football better than cross-country skiing. – You can play all year round and you do not need good weather. On skis, there is not much team sports, so you get better chemistry on the track, you motivate each other and support each other more than you did on skis, because then you went alone, he says. However, he has no answer on how the Ski Association can do something about that particular problem. – I do not know if there is so much to do. WILL LISTEN: Secretary General of the Norwegian Ski Association, Ingvild Bretten Berg, says they will listen to input. Photo: Ørn E. Borgen / NTB scanpix Bretten Berg says they want to listen to what Amund says. – We have to look at the content of our club activity. And this is exactly what our club developers are going to look at. If you feel that you are done when you are 16 years old, we must look at the content of the activity itself. We will adapt it in a better way than we have managed now, says the Secretary General. Hoping for a new WC effect Aukland now hopes that skiing will get a similar boost as during the WC in Oslo in 2011, when the WC is held in Trondheim in 2015. – We had big stars like Northug, with high ratings on TV broadcasts. The interest in what we see on TV is reflected in how many people start with that sport, he says. news’s sports commentator Jan Petter Saltvedt thinks the Ski Association has had it too good. – Skiing is to that extent a part of both soul and wallet in this country here. So they have not had to rethink. When they realize they have to, they’re late. Saltvedt believes there are no signs that the trend is about to reverse and that the Ski Association must prepare for the fact that cross-country skiing is no longer a mass sport. – You must not do it exclusively, but you must create a niche product that can be large. Must do something active. There will be no more snow. Then you have to lower the threshold where people are, and it costs money, he says. Ski president Dyrhaug makes no secret of the fact that they have a big job ahead of them. – There is no doubt that the whole of Ski-Norway is focused on that. We come from a shit where there have been a lot of good discussions, and there is no doubt that the main focus must be put there, she says. Facts about the membership numbers in the Norwegian Ski Association The number of members has decreased from 138,000 to 115,000 in the last two years. 17 percent of the members have signed up during the corona pandemic. During 2020, the Norwegian Ski Association lost 13,000 active members. Since 2011, almost 40 percent of the association’s active members have disappeared. At most, the Ski Association had about 185,000 members. In 2019, a report from an organizing committee stated that the Norwegian Ski Association had to take action to reverse the trend. Nevertheless, the decline has continued.
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