Norseman: A Fjord Full of Stories Part 2

It seemed important to get the photo above. Furthest right is Hårek Stranheim, the man we can credit for the Norseman race.

Stranheim started the race in 2003, literally knocking on doors and telling people about the race to try and get people to do it. At the time there were very few triathletes in Norway. One of the people he convinced to do the event? The man in the middle of the picture, Fredrik Mandt. We caught up with Mandt earlier this year in our Slowtwitch Podcast – you can listen to that here. Fredrik was an accomplished endurance skier and cyclist, and, as he puts it, was an easy sell when the Norseman challenge was put to him.

The man to the left of the photo is Bent Olav Olsen. While Stranheim was dreaming up the Norseman event, Olsen was starting up the Oslofjord Triatlon club and helping promote the sport in the country.

We wrote about him last year, too.

Together they are all here in Eidfjord, busily trying to coordinate this incredible event. Earlier this week, standing in the pouring rain during the practice swim, Stranheim embraced the conditions. After a warm European summer, the rain had finally arrived — “the proper Norseman weather, really,” he said.

With Alistair Brownlee and athletes from across the globe on the start list, it’s a long way from where the race began. “We have always been very optimistic about the event from the start,” Stranheim said. “But we are at a good place now, and we are very happy to attract people like this to do the event together with us.”

Ask him what a successful Saturday looks like, and the answer isn’t about finish times. “First of all, safety — getting everybody through the course in a safe manner is the number one target,” he said. “There are always things thrown at us — the conditions, the weather, things will happen. But a good year with no accidents, and people going back home with a big smile, safe and sound. That is the number one target.”

Is This Her Year?

Kaja Bergwitz-Larsen heads into Norseman 2026 as one of the women’s favorites, with three previous podium finishes to her name — including 2024, where she overtook Britain’s Claire Weller on the brutal final ascent up Gaustatoppen to secure her spot on the podium. This year, for the first time, she’s built her entire season around this single race rather than splitting focus across the XTRI circuit. “This year, I’m not going to race Celtman or Swissman like previous years but instead prepare and focus only on Norseman,” she said ahead of the race.

But there’s a bigger story behind the singular focus: this will be her last Norseman. Her goals?

“To enjoy the race, the last time, and to set a personal best,” she said. “So I think the weather will be quite challenging, so it will be fun. And, also, to do it one last time with my support team.”

Asked why she’s decided to make this her final Norseman, her answer was simple: “Because I’ve done it three times before, so it’s time for something else.”

That doesn’t mean the pull of the race has faded. Asked what’s kept bringing her back for a fourth time, she pointed to the setting itself. “I think it is the atmosphere and the nature, because it’s stunning,” she said. “Riding in the mountains and fighting the mountains — it’s what I like the most.”

With a win still missing from her Norseman résumé, what would it mean to finally take it in her farewell race?

“Well, let’s think about that tomorrow,” she said. “See how it goes first.”

She’s raced to the finish atop Gaustatoppen three times already, and the process never gets less demanding. “You put a lot of effort and training to get to the finish, or to get to the start line, and then to the finish line,” she said.

What makes that effort worth it, she said, is who’s there to share it.

“To do it with friends and family, it means a lot.” It’s part of why she keeps returning to XTRI races specifically.

“You don’t do this race alone,” she said. “I think that’s also why I come back to the extreme triathlons — when you can bring your support. I think that’s what makes it even better than IRONMAN, when you are all alone. Now you can share the experience with your support.”

Ernie Mantell Steps Into the Mix

American Ernie Mantell lives in Spain these days, and arrives in Eidfjord as one of the names other athletes expect to see near the front tomorrow — a departure from the usual Norseman calculus of simply surviving the course. Asked how he was feeling heading into race day, he kept it grounded. “I’m feeling as good as one can feel, knowing full well that the weather, as we found out walking from the hotel to the dock, can change at a moment’s notice,” he said. “But it should be hard out there for everybody.”

He doesn’t shy away from the fact that this year’s field turns Norseman into an actual race up front, not just a survival exercise. “My coach (Elliot Bassett) told me this a while ago – he doesn’t coach people to lose,” Mantell said. He hopes that he will be up at the front with the likes of Kristian Grue and Juuso Manninen. Then there is the unknown factor – Alistair Brownlee.

“Anytime that guy’s on a start line, it doesn’t matter if he says he’s not gonna try hard, he’ll still be really good.”

His outlook for the day balances ambition with realism. “I think it will be a really hard race, and I’m praying for good conditions, but I intend to race it — I also do intend to finish it,” he said. “IRONMANs are hard no matter what, and this will put another element of difficulty into it, so it should be fun.”

What drew him to Norseman in the first place, he joked, started with something simple: “There are less and less wetsuit swims available these days, so I knew this was gonna be a wetsuit-legal swim.” But beneath the joke was a more serious pull. “It’s really just the course, and having the opportunity to race in so many beautiful places,” he said. “I think there’s an emphasis at this race on doing a really difficult thing. Just getting to the finish line, of either the white shirt or the black shirt, is an incredible accomplishment. Doing an IRONMAN is hard, but doing this race — it’s the difficult conditions, the terrain, the amount of logistics.”

That difficulty, he said, is easier to face with the right people behind him. His mother and a close friend – James Scott-Farrington – have flown in as his support crew. “Being able to have my mom and my friend here supporting me is really cool,” he said. His mother, he added, has taken the assignment seriously: “She’s been studying very hard — studying the race manual.” Scott-Farrington, meanwhile, is being deployed strategically for the race’s hardest terrain. “I would say there’s not very many runners who are as good as James, who’s gonna be helping me on Zombie Hill and the end, as far as running goes. So I’m in good hands with my support team, and yeah, it should be really fun.”

Another Celebrity Supporter

Jon Breivold is a three-time winner of this race and holds a bunch of course records. In 2022 he set the record for the fastest finish to the top of Mount Gausta, finishing in 9:23:28. The following year, thanks to a storm that forced organizers to skip the Gaustatoppen finish, he finished in 9:09:57. He also holds the bike and run course records, too.

Breivold is here this weekend, but he won’t be racing – he’s here to support his girlfriend, Ine Skjellum. He’s competing at the Alpe D’Huez race next week, so he had to give Norseman a pass.

“Of course, when I am here, I would like to — I get a little bit of FOMO,” he said. “But it’s going to be nice to be on the other side as well, and she’s been support for me two times before. So it’s time to give back to her.”

Skjellum, arrives with real form behind her. She finished seventh in 2023, and Breivold sees no reason to lower expectations this time around. “I think the women’s race this year is very open,” he said. “Maybe she will be there up there fighting for podium position. We’ll see.”

Despite years of racing Norseman himself, Breivold has never worked the support side of it.

“That’s going to be interesting,” he said. Whether crewing is easier than racing is, in his mind, an open question. “Physically, I think it will be easier, hopefully. But mentally or psychologically, maybe it’s going to be more difficult.” He’d compared notes beforehand with Kristian Grue, who supported a friend at Norseman two years ago. “He said that he was almost more tired after he was a support than when he was racing himself. So it’s going to be a different day for sure.”

The stakes of the assignment aren’t lost on him. — miss a checkpoint, and there will be consequences. Now it’s his turn to be the one doing the supporting — and, by his own account, to be in all the right places with all the right things.

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