- We have had some contact, says the Swedish World Cup medal jump.

- I received support from SOK just over a year ago and it was probably Wolfgang Pichler who, with his employment there, worked quite hard for me to receive that support.

He believed in what I did.

Fingertip feel as so often before by Pichler, who took Sweden from a member-like biathlon nation to world leader.

Given van der Poel's long stay away from the sport, it was by no means a given that the runner would receive support for a bet against Beijing.

But Pichler saw something in van der Poel.

"Widened the views for us"

- He has assisted with some thoughts about training and competition.

It is general, when you are an athlete in a small sport such as skating is in Sweden, then there is not all knowledge about how to become good at your own sport, but it may be necessary to broaden your views a little and we have tried do.

Wolfgang is one of the people we have talked to a lot to get some other insights and see our sport from a different perspective.

- We have a lot in common with other fitness sports, but our culture may be a little different and just because the culture says one thing, it is not certain that it is right but you have to find ways to change it.

And there Wolfgang and others have been very helpful.

Pichler's job: Finding medal chances

Wolfgang Pichler became the national captain of the Swedish biathlon national team 1995-1998, and he also took the assignment in 2002 after having been the personal trainer of the biathlon legend Magdalena Forsberg for four years.

From the 2015 season until 2019, he was again the national captain of the Swedish biathlon national team after coaching the Russian biathlon ladies between 2011 and 2014. Under his leadership, Sweden won two gold and two silver medals during the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.

After that, he got his current job at SOK, as a talent developer with the task of finding medal chances for Sweden in the sports that have been more or less forgotten in recent years and to prepare young Winter Olympics to succeed in betting on the world top.

In Nils van der Poel, the German really seems to have succeeded with his job description.

Pichler suffered from serious heart problems during a cycling session near his hometown of Ruhpolding in Germany in September 2020, but has since recovered.

CLIP: Nils van der Poel gets double World Cup places

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Fantastic race by van der Poel.

Photo: TV10 / TT.