Olympic Offensive is a working group of Sweden's Olympic Committee, which aims to find and develop new talents in winter sports, with the goal of taking 20 medals, including five golds, during the 2026 Olympics.

Now an effort is also being made for the Swedish ice skating team.

Joel Eriksson, former Swedish national team player at the Olympic and World Cup level, is picked as responsible for "a new unique project" supported by SOK.

- I think this project is a huge opportunity for Swedish ice skating and for the active ones who will participate in the project. I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in and drive this project towards the goal which is the Olympic medal 2026, he says in a press release.

Wolfgang Pichler, responsible for talent development in the Olympic Offensive, is pleased with the coach selection.

- It is much better to have a young Swedish coach, I am against having many coaches from outside. For me, it is important that we get better in this project in every way - the union, the coach and the active ones, ”says Pichler to SVT Sport.

SOK did a survey that showed that Sweden participates in 51 percent of sports in a Winter Olympics.

- Then we saw that skating accounts for 20 percent of the medals in a winter Olympics. We then decided to aim for the Olympics 2026 and that is what we have done now. It will be a long journey, says Pichler.

How much talent is there in skating in Sweden?

- Hard to say. We have some enthusiastic practitioners, but we have to wait longer. We have too many amateurs currently. We have some young guys, 15-16 years, that we work with. Then on the girl side we have Erika Lindgren who is a talent.

- It looked the same with biathlon before, for many years there was nothing. With hard training it goes.

Pichler would like to see the skate project receive more financial support.

- We invest a lot from SOK. But the team needs a sponsor, there is not much money in the union, says the 65-year-old German.

The Demon Trainer opens to try to lure ice hockey players into skates.

- I have been in Sweden for so many years and really see opportunities with Swedish athletes. If you look at skating there are many who practice it. We have many ice hockey players, but we only have one that is doing short track. It's interesting. We may be able to find ice hockey players - who are around 15-16 years - who are really good at skating and they may be able to lock over to short track. Then there is a chance to take many medals, says Pichler.

Other sports that Pichler is working on now are skeleton, tobogganing, jumping and biathlon.

- We have some skeleton talents and there are some young people in the sled. We also focus on jumping for ladies. There are two good people on the youth side there, says Pichler.

- When it comes to male biathlon, we have a problem. We have a group of six young male biathletes, 18-19 years old, with whom we work. They have the support of SOK and there we hope to be able to work together with the ski association.

ARCHIVE: "Pichler's play: It's simple medals" (October 30, 2019)

Javascript is turned off

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Learn more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser. We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Learn more about browser support