Norway's Sturla Holm Laegreid followed up his bronze medal in the biathlon at the Winter Olympics on Tuesday with a stunning confession that he had cheated on his girlfriend, before openly begging her for another chance.
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Of all the emerging schools of thought in sports, the most interesting are the gym Cynics.
This small group of athlete/philosophers reject current notions of sporting success. They don’t believe that winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing; or that the purpose of life is to get ‘er done. They have been to the mountaintop, looked out over the plain below and decided that one private jet is enough for any person.
Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top golfer, did pioneering work in this field at the 2025 British Open.
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“What is the point?” Scheffler wondered aloud to a group of journalists who just wanted to know more about slight tweaks to his putting stroke. Then, talking to himself, he decided there wasn’t one.
You could tell this baffled his colleagues. Then Scheffler won the tournament jogging away and, by their own code, they weren’t allowed to critique him. Socrates won a lot of big games, but he never stuffed it to the Sophists so hard.
Sturla Holm Laegreid of Norway won bronze in the men's 20km.Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images
Now, at these Olympics, we have a new, intellectually exciting example of the type: Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid.
Laegreid, 28, is a monster in his discipline. He’s won seven times at the world championships, and a gold medal at Beijing. He’s already won a bronze here, with more road to go.
After that bronze, Laegreid was called over to do one of those autopilot interviews with a trackside reporter from the Norwegian national broadcaster.
You could do one of these, because you know the script by heart: ‘Great race; tough competition; really brought it today; thank my team; is the logo in the shot?’ It probably sounds nicer in Norwegian.
Laegreid headed off-piste, and eventually off a rhetorical cliff. He started to get choked up – which a gold medalist does not do after a bronze. Then he jacked the wheel to one side and skidded into his personal life.
“Six months ago, I met the love of my life – the most beautiful and kindest person in the world. Three months ago, I made the biggest mistake and cheated on her.”
And then he wept.
Watching Lindsey Vonn turn one of her legs into a bag of marbles on live TV was hard. Watching this clip – even in a language you don’t understand – was harder.
After that, Laegreid apparently went around the media areas telling everyone with a notebook or a camera some version of the same thing, in English as well as his own language.
“I had the gold medal in life, and I am sure there are many people who will see things differently, but I only have eyes for her.”
This puts us into the romcom fallacy. Yes, it’s romantic. It’s also wildly intrusive. Laegreid has decided to be famous. His as-yet unnamed ex-girlfriend hasn’t. Either way, I wouldn’t be excited about temporarily becoming the world’s best-known deceived lover.
On Wednesday, the woman was quoted anonymously in a Norwegian newspaper: “I did not choose to be put in this position, and it hurts to have to be in it.”
I’m getting a sense of Laegreid’s problem, and it’s not getting back together with the kindest person in the world. It’s impulse control.
But his larger point stands – that titles and gold medals are the most important thing in life, until you have them.
Being truly great at sports must be a special kind of curse for a thoughtful person. There is no more richly remunerative occupation in terms of money and status. Everywhere you go, you inspire awe. I’ve been with people as it happens.
It is hard to describe how the entry of a famous athletic face changes the temperature in a room. Heads turn in sequence and time slows. Just by virtue of proximity, you can feel yourself mattering more.
I’ve had people ask for my autograph because they were so discombobulated asking for the autograph of the guy beside me. Humans who consider things deeply do not prosper under these social conditions.
Fortunately for them, elite athletes repel thoughtfulness. It’s antithetical to their work, because too much thinking gets in the way of doing. This is just their life. They get used to it.
But a very few of them can see what’s on the other side, and realize they are unable to get to it. This presumes they aren’t just good, but great. They have gone as far up as you go, and what’s there? Nothing. Unsurprisingly, a lot of this type are religious.
The ones who aren’t able to connect how much luck has played a role in their outcome, how little success matters if the rest of your life is a shambles and how universal that feeling is, crack up. Plenty of the unthoughtful ones crack up, too.
There’s a reason so many sports people can’t deal with anyone outside the context of sports. It’s the only thing keeping them tethered to the Earth.
Ask a sports guy about moral ethics and watch his eyes start rolling around in his head. He has not been equipped for that kind of uncertainty.
A very few sports people can escape this gravity and report from the other side. Ken Dryden, for instance. It’s a shame there aren’t more like him.
Great athletes are to right now what great thinkers were to the late-19th, early-20th century. They either lead the culture, or are in contact with the people who do. Those with the tools could describe a lot of things to everyone else. But since that would get them excommunicated, they shy away from it.
What we are left with are a few struggling around in plain sight trying to reconcile what they’ve been told to expect with what they’re feeling. They wonder why the greatest jobs in the world leave them unfulfilled, and why people react with something close to revulsion when they talk about it. They’re forced to continue faking it, even after they’ve finished making it.
In this way, and maybe only this way, they are just like the rest of us.