Hard: "Things are getting urgent - soon a crisis package is needed"

New length coach Daniel Fåhreus and freshman national team manager Anders Byström today presented a rather untested coach group for the A and B national teams.

The exception is Magnus Ingesson with many years of experience of being an elite ski coach. Stefan Thomson has been with two seasons with strength training as a specialty. Anders Högberg has coached China's national team, but this will be a new level. And Lars Ljung has been a video analyst for the national team, but not a coach.

The fact that the collaboration works in the coach group - and with the personal trainers that our biggest stars have - becomes important for whether there is harmony or grin in the team. A great responsibility rests on Ingesson's and national team manager Byström's leadership.

Despite Stina Nilsson's departure, the women's team is historically strong and competition for the places in the national team is murderous. Three riders stormed straight in from the development team: Linn Svahn, Moa Lundgren and Emma Ribom - a good rating for the operations of that group.

Anyone who had hoped to see a stimulus package to lift the men's skiing may have to wait. At the national team level, instead, there will be a real cut bet on the men: from 14 riders last year in the A and B teams - to eight. Instead, resources should be moved to Umeå, Östersund and Falun to create good training environments at home for the riders. And discussions will be held with SOK and biathlon, among other things, on how to lift the men together. More concrete than that is not a men's venture right now. It is getting urgent - soon a crisis package is needed.

One source of much dissatisfaction last winter was the Swedish embankment. Too many times the field material was not competitive.

Already a year ago, the then new length manager Jonas Pettersson (after the riders' evaluations) wanted to replace parts of the whaling team, but this led to a revolt which ended with Pettersson being fired instead. 

Slightly in from the west (Norway), Petter Myhlback now comes to head the ramparts. A former elite rider with no excellence in voting but with a keen interest in leadership. Let's hope that star recruitment Perry Olsson ("the world's best walker", back after 17 years in Norway) will be the stimulus for the entire whaling team that he can be if his solid knowledge and tireless work is utilized properly.