Last year, they were both on the Norwegian development team. This year, the lovebirds are following each other onto the elite national team.

According to Langrenn.com, the two young lovebirds are moving up to the elite team this year.

Just before Easter, it became clear that Andreas Fjorden Ree was offered a spot on the Norwegian national team for the coming season. Now, his girlfriend, Nora Sanness, is set to join the women’s national team.

“Nora Sanness is joining the team. She replaces Anne Kjersti Kalvå, who is leaving,” says Hans Christer Holund in the latest episode of the Hans & Holund podcast.

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Sanness and Ree have known each other for several years, but it wasn’t until they both made the development team that they became a couple. Sanness had had her eye on the Trønder for quite some time.

Both Fjorden Ree and Sanness earned spots on the Norwegian squad for the World Championships in Trondheim.

But while Sanness was selected for the 50km race and rewarded the team’s trust with an impressive sixth-place finish, her boyfriend was left out. A decision that caused quite a stir.

Oxygen monsters

Fjorden Ree is known for his enormous capacity and has excelled across all distances since completely overhauling his training ahead of last season.

Sanness, too, is an extraordinary endurance athlete.

The young woman from Kjelsås made headlines during the women’s first 50km race in Holmenkollen two years ago. Then a 22-year-old skier, she finished an impressive fifth in her World Cup debut. On what is arguably the toughest course on the circuit. Her former coach calls her an “O2 monster.”

Extreme training

One thing the two have in common is their love of training — a lot of it.

Fjorden Ree, who has always trained hard, is now training even more after changing his program this spring and logs significantly more hours than Sanness over the course of the year.

Sanness trains between 1,000 and 1,100 hours annually. Sanness is one of the highest-volume athletes – both on the development team and compared to the world elite.

Since the start of the training year in May up to the season opener in Beitostølen, Fjorden Ree had completed a staggering 735 training hours, with several months exceeding 135 hours. His training program, inspired by the world’s best triathletes, is based on five-day cycles, repeated week after week.

The five training days are packed. On day one, he does three sessions, two of which are intense intervals. Day two features “double threshold” — two threshold-intensity interval sessions. On Day three he does three more sessions, with the middle one being especially hard. Day four is a volume day. Day five is “active recovery” with light training. Then the cycle begins again.

The results have been as wild as the training itself: within a few months, Fjorden Ree increased his VO2 max from 71 to over 81.

Many left without offers

Both Fjorden Ree and Sanness have been on the development team last season. Earlier this winter, the Norwegian Ski Federation decided to eliminate both the development and junior teams starting in the 2025–26 season.

For many athletes on those teams, this means significantly more uncertainty in their athletic careers. This includes junior world champions Milla Grosberghaugen Andreassen and Filip Skari, who now both find themselves without national team offers.

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