Marit Bjørgen (born March 21, 1980, Trondheim, Norway) is a Norwegian cross-country skier who was the greatest female athlete in the sport and who was also the most-decorated Winter Olympian in history; her record 15 medals included 8 golds.
Bjørgen grew up on a farm in Rognes, Norway, and took the typical route of a young Norwegian by learning to ski as a child, competing for the first time at the age of seven. She made her World Cup debut in 1999 and won her first World Cup race in 2002. She also qualified for Norway’s Olympic team and gained her first Olympic medal with a silver in the 4 × 5-km relay at the 2002 Salt Lake City (Utah) Games. In 2003 Bjørgen won the individual sprint in Val di Fiemme for her first world championships title and secured the first of four straight World Cup sprint titles. In 2005 she captured five medals, including three golds, at the world championships and secured the overall World Cup title and the distance crown for the first time. Bjørgen successfully defended the overall title in 2006, and that same year she picked up a silver medal in the 10-km event at the Turin (Italy) Winter Olympics.
Bjørgen slumped a bit over the next few years, winning a pair of bronze medals at the 2007 world championships before failing to reach the podium at the 2009 world championships. However, she broke out in 2010 by becoming the most-successful individual Olympian at the Vancouver Games, with five total medals, three of them gold (1.5-km sprint, skiathlon, and 4 × 5-km relay); she also won a silver in the 30-km event and a bronze in the 10-km event. Bjørgen’s success continued at the 2011 world championships, where she captured four gold medals and a silver. She won the overall World Cup title and the distance crown in 2012 after having finished second in both in each of the previous two years. She returned to Val di Fiemme for the 2013 world championships and again won four gold medals and a silver.
At the 2014 Sochi (Russia) Olympics, Bjørgen won gold medals in the skiathlon, the 30-km event, and the team sprint. With her 10 career medals, she joined Raisa Smetanina and Stefania Belmondo, both of whom were also cross-country skiers, as the most-decorated female Olympians in history. The following year Bjørgen had an outstanding World Cup season as she captured her fourth overall title—this time by a whopping 784 points—and won the sprint title for a record-tying fifth time. In addition, she came away with the distance crown for a third time. She won her first Tour de Ski title, in Val di Fiemme, Italy, and earned two gold medals at the world ski championships. She doubled her gold-medal take at the 2017 world ski championships, taking the top prize in the 10-km, 30-km, pursuit, and 4 × 5-km relay events. At the 2018 Winter Games in P’yŏngch’ang, South Korea, Bjørgen won the 30-km and 4 × 5-km relay golds as well as one silver and two bronze medals to bring her lifetime Olympic medal total to 15, the most ever for any Winter Olympian. In April 2018 she announced her retirement from competitive skiing.