Norway is in mourning for Olaf Tufte, the most decorated rower in the country's Olympic history, who died on Tuesday at the age of 50, just a day after he was found unconscious on his family farm.
Tufte was discovered unresponsive at around 3pm on Monday at Tufte Gård, the farm he ran with his wife in Horten, on Norway's southern coast. Emergency crews administered first aid at the scene before he was rushed to Rikshospitalet in Oslo, where he died the following day.
The hospital and Tufte's family said he suffered acute cardiac arrest. An autopsy was planned to establish the full circumstances, and there were no signs of a workplace accident or witnesses to his collapse.
Tufte was, by any measure, one of Norway's greatest Olympians. He competed at seven consecutive Summer Games, from Atlanta in 1996 through the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, a span of 25 years at the top of his sport.
His signature achievement came in the men's single sculls, where he won back-to-back Olympic gold medals at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. He also took silver in the double sculls at Sydney 2000 and, at 40 years old, bronze in the double sculls alongside Kjetil Borch at Rio 2016.
Away from the Olympics, Tufte was twice crowned world champion in the single sculls, in 2001 and 2003, becoming the first Norwegian ever to win a world rowing title. He finished his career with six world championship medals in total.
In 2021 he was awarded the Thomas Keller Medal, rowing's highest individual honour, in recognition of a career that helped put Norwegian rowing on the map.
After retiring from elite competition, Tufte largely stepped back from the spotlight. He worked his family farm, served as a volunteer firefighter, and built a string of small businesses, including a concrete firm, the clothing label Tufte Wear and a brewery.
He had not fully left the sport behind. Frank Ove Reite, president of the Norwegian Rowing Federation, said Tufte had joined a joint training session with the national squad at the Årungen rowing stadium in Ås just the previous Friday, days before his death.
"It is completely terrible and incomprehensible," Reite said, adding that his thoughts were with Tufte's family in what he called an "incomprehensible situation," and describing the news as a shock that had rippled through Norway's rowing community.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre also paid tribute, saying Tufte "brought enormous athletic joy to us as a nation" and was remembered as one of the country's most beloved sporting figures.
Tufte is survived by his wife, Aina, and their two children.
