Sweden is a nation of amateur athletes and physical exercise enthusiasts. The Swedes love their grandiose Nordic nature above all else, and what most of them mean by "enjoying nature" is taking active advantage of it — by going out hiking, jogging, cross-country or Alpine skiing, long-distance ice skating, sailing, paddling a canoe, fishing, playing soccer (European football) or golf and practicing just about all other imaginable sports and leisure activities.
Olympic Heptathlete Champion Carolina Klüft. Photo: Tommy Holl/Göteborg & Co
The Swedish "sports movement" is highly developed and well-dispersed. It reaches a large proportion of the population — men and women, people of all social classes and of all ages. This active lifestyle is one reason why Swedes as a whole are in comparatively good health and have one of the world's longest average life expectancies.
The breadth and popular support enjoyed by the Swedish sports movement also help explain why Sweden, considering its small population, has achieved remarkable success in major sports such as tennis, skiing, ice hockey, soccer and golf. The list of Swedish global sports stars of today and yesterday is long. Björn Borg, Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg (tennis), Ingemar Stenmark and Pernilla Wiberg (Alpine skiing), Gunde Svan (cross-country skiing) and Jan-Ove Waldner (table tennis) are only a few of the major names from the past three decades.
Among today's biggest Swedish sports stars are Annika Sörenstam (golf), Anja Pärson (Alpine skiing), Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin and Niklas Lidström (ice hockey), Stefan Holm, Christian Olsson, Carolina Klüft and Kajsa Bergqvist (track and field) and Fredrik Ljungberg and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (soccer).