OSLO, Norway (AP) \u2014 Olympic rowing great Olaf Tufte, who competed at seven straight Summer Games and won two gold medals, has died. He was aged 50.<\/p>\n
Norwegian media reported a statement by Tufte\u2019s family on Tuesday that he was found unconscious at their farm and died at a hospital in Oslo. He is survived by his wife and two children.<\/p>\n
\u201cTufte brought immense joy through sport to us as a nation,\u201d Norway\u2019s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re said in a statement. \u201cHe was one of Norway\u2019s greatest sporting heroes, a decorated Summer Olympian, one of the finest rowers we have ever had, and a great role model to many.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two-time champion in single sculls competed at each Summer Games from Atlanta in 1996 through the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021. He won back-to-back titles at Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. In double sculls, Tufte took silver in Sydney in 2000 and bronze in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe closed out his competitive career at the Tokyo Olympics at age 45, rowing in the men\u2019s quadruple sculls alongside teammates young enough to have been born after his own Olympic debut,\u201d World Rowing said in a statement. \u201cThe veteran mentor, still on the water, still leading by example.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tufte also was in Paris for the 2024 Paralympic Games and coached Birgit Skarstein to a silver medal in single sculls.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlongside his rowing, Tufte ran the family farm, worked as a volunteer firefighter, and built businesses including a concrete company, the clothing brand Tufte Wear and a brewery,\u201d World Rowing said.<\/p>\n
The governing body cited a quote from Tufte who once said: \u201cI\u2019m not made for resting. I need to do other stuff otherwise I get bored.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OSLO, Norway (AP) \u2014 Olympic rowing great Olaf Tufte, who competed at seven straight Summer Games and won two gold medals, has died. He was aged 50. Norwegian media reported a statement by Tufte\u2019s family on Tuesday that he was found unconscious at their farm and died at a hospital in Oslo. He is survived … Continue reading Olympic rowing great Olaf Tufte who competed at seven Summer Games has died at age 50<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1526860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-24 12:56:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1526860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526861,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526860\/revisions\/1526861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1526860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1526860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1526860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}