It’s been a long time since the greatest cross-country skier in the world went out to dinner. Johannes Høsflot Klaebo, the 29-year-old Norwegian, eats at home in the months before his biggest events. Not just to control the exact ingredients entering his body — but specifically to avoid sickness from strangers.
Can you blame him? Klaebo longs to return to “ordinary things” in retirement. But for now, his golden lungs are his lifeblood. If he’s going to add to his war chest of Olympic medals this month, he’ll need them performing to their usual prodigious standard.
In recent years, many a run-club member has signed up for their very first VO2 max test. They strap on the blue oxygen mask, run hard and post their results for all of TikTok to see (usually because they’ve “blown” a pretty good number). But they might be surprised to learn that the true kings of the buzzy biometric aren’t runners — they’re cross-country skiers.
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For a refresher, VO2 max is “the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise.” It has really strong ties to performance, of course, and more recently has been linked to life expectancy. Exercise scientists are able to coax out the metric via 10 to 20-minute tests on a treadmill (or stationary bike!), with help from a heart rate monitor and the aforementioned oxygen mask.
Results are expressed in ml/kg/minute, which translates to “milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute of exercise.” Suffice to say: the higher that number, the better your lungs and heart are at getting blood to your muscles (and the better your muscles are at using that blood).
A few numbers I want you to consider here:
- The average VO2 max for a middle-aged man: 27-38.9 ml/kg/minute
- An “excellent” VO2 max for a man under the age of 29: 53 ml/kg/minute
- The estimated VO2 max of marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge: 78 ml/min/kg
- The confirmed VO2 max of Lance Armstrong: 84 ml/min/kg
Top of the Cardio Chart
Ever heard of Espen Harald Bjerke, Bjørn Dæhlie or Tore Ruud Hofstad? They’ve all registered mind-boggling VO2 max scores of 92 ml/min/kg or better — and they’re all cross-country skiers.
There are athletes from other disciplines to cross that threshold, including a handful of Olympian cyclists, and most notably, Kilian Jornet (the runner-mountaineer who summited 72 of the United States’ tallest peaks in just one month last year). But Nordic skiers dominate the top of the rankings. Why is that? For one, look to the sport itself. It’s not just a grueling, long-haul endurance sport. It’s a full-body one.
As exercise geneticist Dr. Alun Williams explained to Velo: “Exercise involving more muscle mass tends to give higher values, so usually cross-country skiing (using upper and lower body) gives higher values than running.”
It’s ultimate muscle recruitment, mixed with relentless aerobic demand. Elite cross-country skiers need to pump blood to every corner of their body, often while grinding uphill. The result is an unusually dense and efficient capillary network. I’m unsurprised that New Yorkers without Norwegian fjords in their backyards are trying to get in on these benefits. Cross-country-skiing classes are firmly on the rise.
Norwegian Dominance
Why are there so many Norwegians at the upper tier of the VO2 max rankings? Well, the country happens to love endurance sports. You may have heard of Jakob Ingebrigtsen, one of the best distance runners alive. Or triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt, who recently posted a VO2 max reading of 101.1 to his Instagram. If it’s legit, it would be an all-time record.
Norwegians are raised with “friluftsliv” in their veins, a nationwide reverence for outdoor recreation. Kids grow up with endless trails, reliable ski seasons and first-rate infrastructure.
Endurance sports are a beloved pastime first, which means Norwegians are optimizing their aerobic capacity before anyone starts keeping score. Once they turn into world-beating athletes, the system compounds. This whole VO2 max conversation has become a point of national priority and pride. Norway leverages its well-funded performance labs, with a system designed to measure and maximize endurance. There’s some skepticism around the numbers, but the results speak for themselves.
Obviously, Norwegians are specifically built for the Winter Games — they enter Milan as the only country with over 400 lifetime medals. And if you love the sport most strongly associated with VO2 max, then yeah, you’re probably going to dominate the VO2 max rankings.
VO2 Max Isn’t Everything
It’s worth pointing out that VO2 max is more predictive than determinative. A VO2 max test is like opening the hood of a car to get a peak at the engine — but there’s no guarantee that that car will receive the right fuel and tinkering it needs to perform at a high level for the long haul. (There’s the infamous case of Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen, who once blew a 97.5 ml/min/kg, but competed professionally for only a few years.)
At the Olympics, sure: it’s a given that anyone toeing the line of the 50km classic has an absolutely alien VO2 max. But that’s only part of the story that got them there.
One thing that’s absolutely certain: these athletes deserve credit for performing at the highest level of what is one of the world’s hardest, most underrated and oldest sports. They’re not just the best endurance athletes at the Winter Games — their aerobic capacity is on par with the planet’s best cyclists, and definitely its greatest runners (regardless of what running message boards have to say).
Can anyone take down Klaebo this year? Probably not. The man already had the finest engine around before he absconded to Park City, 7,000 feet above sea level, to train for months on end. Swiss sprinter Valerio Grond is out of ideas. “Maybe break his poles or something? I don’t know.”
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