What the hell is going on with the Norwegian biathlon team?
The gold medal winner, Johan-Olav Botn, dedicated his win to his late teammate and training partner, Sivert Guttorm Bakken. Botn discovered Bakken's dead body in Bakken's Italian hotel room when he went to pick him up for practice about six weeks ago. There has been no announced cause of death, though Bakken was wearing a
high-altitude training mask with the pressure jacked up to 4.3 miles of elevation. Wikipedia cites a German article stating the the cause of death is expected sometime in March (after the Olympics), which seems oddly specific.
I am wondering how Botn was able to get into Bakken's hotel room - did he have a key? There is apparently no murder investigation ongoing. Botn is said to be in an "intimate relationship" with a female (also a Norwegian skier). Anyway, Botn dedicated his win to his deceased friend. The altitude mask seems to be the lever, but there's a possibility of an overdose, accidental or not.
However, the headlines belonged to bronze medalist Sturla Holm Laegreid. Laegreid used his interview time to weep into the camera and apologize for cheating on his girlfriend, who he met six months ago, with a (presumed) girl he met three months ago. The girlfriend dumped him, and this has made him very sad. He's 28 years old, by the way, and won gold at the World Championships five years ago. This is surely not his first rodeo.
What do you think of when you see elite athletes with unusual hormone profiles?
