CNN 10｜Could happiness be the key to winning Olympic gold

COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR:
Peace of heart, peace of mind, peace of gold? Could happiness be the secret to Olympic dominance?

Norway reached new heights at this year's Winter Games with a record 18 gold medals, and 41 overall.  But how does a country of about 5.5 million people, roughly the same population as the state of South Carolina, become an Olympic juggernaut?

Turns out, the decades-long approach might be summed up best by a famous Pink Floyd lyric, leave them kids alone. When it comes to their youngest athletes, Norway prioritizes enjoyment and inclusivity over pressure to perform. There's no scorekeeping, no rankings or league standings until the age of 12.

And if one athlete under the age of 12 gets a trophy, well then everyone does. The formula may not come as a surprise when you consider that Norway is consistently ranked as one of the happiest countries in the world.

The approach aims to keep kids coming back each season. And officials say that by age 25, 93% of Norwegians have been involved in organized sports. Compare that to here in the United States, where one report found that 70% of young athletes dropped out of organized sports by age 13, largely due to injury or burnout.

Norway's unique approach also allows future generations to bloom into elite athletes at their own pace, and the results have largely spoken for themselves.

Tore Øvrebø (Norway's Director of Elite Sport): But it's always in this long-term thinking of being happy kids, focused elite athletes and good citizen afterwards. So we try to balance these ambitions as good as we can with the long-term development for life and then this maybe 10-15 years where they're really focused on winning.

So that's the balance that we do, and we always have this long term thinking behind when we're doing decisions. But we do not rank the kids. They compete a lot, but we do not rank.

So the next day, they start over again. It's not like, oh, you are the right kid, or you are not the good kid. Because we are really focused on not creating losers. We want to create happy kids.

Wire: So what do you think? In formative years, should happiness be prioritized over winning? Could other countries learn from Norway's approach? Have you ever felt the pressure to excel at a sport or activity and that made it less enjoyable? Feel free to hit pause and ruminate and debate.

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