Hans B. Skaset

Hans Bernhard Skaset (born 10 April 1935) is a Norwegian athlete, sports scientist, sports official and civil servant. He was a three-time national champion in pentathlon and decathlon, as well as national team coach. He was notably a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences from 1975 to 1991, president of the Norwegian Athletics Federation from 1976 to 1983 and president of the Norwegian Confederation of Sports from 1984 to 1990.

Early life and education He was born in Åfjord as a son of farmers. Having hereditary rights to his family farm, he chose not to pursue it. He finished his secondary education at Eidsvoll Landsgymnas and took NCO school in 1953.

Athlete and coach While residing at Eidsvoll, Skaset represented the club IL Vito and competed in athletics. He won his first national title in 1960, in the decathlon. By that time, Skaset had moved to Oslo to attend the State School of Gymnastics. After graduation in 1957, he was hired as a national team coach in the Norwegian Athletics Association, serving as such from 1958 to 1964. He travelled around Europe to study training methods, including in Eastern Europe. In 1962, having changed clubs again to SK Freidig, he set his first Norwegian record in the decathlon. While Godtfred Holmvang had won the 1946 European Championships in 6987 points, the IAAF revised its scoring table in 1952 which adjusted the score to 6250 points. This was improved by Jan Gulbrandsen to 6296 points in 1959, and then by Hans B. Skaset to 6437 points in August 1962 in Vikersund. En route, he set personal bests in long jump, high jump and hurdles; the contest also had to be postponed for two hours as the pitch was swamped in rainwater. Skaset followed with a back-to-back Norwegian record in September 1962 at Trondheim Stadium, where Skaset reached 6763 points. While three events on day one were worse than during his previous record spell, he most notably improved by 1.3 seconds in the 400 metres, 4 metres in the discus throw, over 5 metres in the javelin throw and more than five and a half seconds in the 1500 metres. IAAF's next score revision in 1962 entailed that Skaset's record was adjusted to 7057 points, which stood for ten years until it was finally broken by Arild Bredholt in 1972. However, Skaset fell somewhat through at the 1962 Norwegian championships, only managing to take bronze in the decathlon. He then won the national pentathlon title in 1963 and took silver in 1964. in which the political goal of "sports for everyone" was cemented.

During his time in the Norwegian Confederation of Sports, the organization drew out its first anti-doping guidelines in 1967. Skaset is also credited as one of the founders of Prosjekt 88, a project to improve Norwegian results at the 1988 Olympics (as Norway ended without any gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics). The Prosjekt 88 morphed into Olympiatoppen and Toppidrettssenteret, Skaset had also criticized national and international sports leadership in 1999, among others IAAF under Primo Nebiolo. Skaset's criticism regarded elite sports as "pure business", fueled by "money, media and the market", and disregarding "local talent development, amateurism and volunteerism".

He returned to the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences as adjunct professor before working as a senior adviser at the Sogn og Fjordane University College from 2003 to 2005. In 2008 he became board member of , an elders' forum for former sports leaders, and served as president there from 2010 to 2012. He was upgraded to honorary membership of the Norwegian Confederation of Sports in 1990, further receiving the veterans' pin from the IAAF in 1993 and being proclaimed honorary council member of the European Athletics Association in 1995.