Olaf Dufseth

Olaf Dufseth was born in Vang, today a part of the town of Hamar. He was a promising athlete in Nordic combined before World War II, placing fourth at an international meeting in Garmisch, Germany in 1939, and came back strongly after the war, placing third at the 1946 Holmenkollen. After finishing second in 1947 and third in 1948 in the Nordic combined national championships, Dufseth was selected for the 1948 Olympic ski team. Norway had won all the Olympic medals in Nordic combined before 1948, but the results in St. Moritz were a great disappointment. The best Norwegian, Eilert Dahl, could only place sixth, and Dufseth placed eighth after a modest 18th place in the ski jumping event.

In the years after the Olympics, Dufseth specialized in cross-country skiing. He tried to qualify for the cross-country team for the 1950 World Championships, but narrowly failed. In the later years of his skiing career he mostly competed in long-distance cross-country, winning his age-class in the Birkebeiner Race 17 times up until 1990, and was called the “Birkebeiner King”. In 1990, aged 71, he had heart surgery, and had to stop competitive skiing. After marriage in the early 1950s Dufseth ran a small farm in Åsbygda in the municipality of Åmot. He was also a successful coach for young skiers, among them Gjermund Eggen, who won three gold medals at the 1966 World Championships in Oslo. Dufseth died in 2009, at close to 92 years of age.