"There should be more talk about mental illness."

The words come from the runner Kalle Berglund who after the Olympics in Tokyo reopened his performance anxiety and mental well-being.

He also wanted the Athletics Association to set the agenda more clearly for how to talk about and deal with mental illness. 

The national doctor Sverker Nilsson believes that they have clear in athletics. 

- We start with those who are part of our elite investment very early on get a mental coach to learn how to handle successes, setbacks and how to prevent in a good way.

When someone is affected, we have connected to psychologists and psychotherapists from the union who support. 

Want to discuss with Berglund

- The coaches get to learn how to handle acute injuries and see when a person feels bad, is in pain or trains incorrectly.  

Berglund also told how he and Secretary General Stefan Olsson agreed to have a meeting on how he can share his experiences.

But it has not happened yet. 

- We are happy to take part in his thoughts, it is extremely important that we constantly learn how we can act better.

Otherwise we will not move on, says Nilsson. 

What can you do better? 

- You could say that everything we do today we are happy that we do, but we can do everything better.

It's a question of resources, money and hiring more staff, but we do not have that.

Lack of resources

Nilsson, who is a district physician, has extensive experience in sports and has made several study visits to different countries.

There he notices how the conditions differ.  

- Hungary where you have a state hospital that has employed a lot of fitness coaches, mental coaches, sports doctors, etc., where everyone who works with the various national teams are full-time employees of the state and their work includes taking care of these pieces.

The vast majority of people who work with sports in Sweden do so in principle completely non-profit and help sports in a fantastic way.

But as long as we do not receive state aid, we cannot compete in the same way.

Clip: Berglund about the continued investment

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Kalle Berglund Photo: TT Nyhetsbyrån