Norway decided to send a team for the cross-country event at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, but had no national championship in this event until 1913, so their team was selected from their best long-distance runners on the track. Andersen set a national 5,000 m record of 16:05.1 in Oslo (then Kristiania) in June 1912, and in the second Olympic selection race he ran 10,000 metres in 34:29, competing against a relay team. He was one of Norway’s top long-distance runners from 1907-16, but never won a Norwegian championship. He died in his home town of Oslo in 1969 at age 79.