Sweden Announces 2020-21 National Team

Apr 24, 2020·Alpine Skiing

The Team are ready and the organizational change is in place, there will be 19 women and 20 men, as well as 6 ski cross athletes who will represent the Swedish Alpine National Team in the 2020-21 season.

- We have already decided organizational changes that involve closer collaboration across the team where Lars Melin assumes the role of national team manager for both alpine and ski cross. Lars has worked his way into this role during the past six months and is now taking over the formal responsibility for the national team activities, which will be an exciting development, says alpine and ski cross manager Tommy Eliasson Winter.

Lars Melin, Mora is now the official national team manager for alpine and ski cross and presents a mixed of talent in Ski Team Sweden Alpine's training groups for the coming season.

- I think we are on a good track. We work to create continuity in our work to develop our skiers. There are only minor adjustments made in the training groups and we also keep the body of our training organization, says Melin.

Younger Athletes have more space

- We have lost two stars this season. When André and Matts have quit, the opportunity to redistribute resources opened up and thus give other skiers more room to develop. We nominate larger training groups among the men, then we work with a special speed organization on both women's and men's side, says Melin.

Fredrik Kingstad, Men’s Head Coach Fredrik Kingstad explains better the idea of working with two training groups before the season and then how the business will change when it is time for competitions.

- The idea is to create a mix of skiers with the World Cup routine and those who are on their development path. This size of the groups is trackable and matchable. When we get into racing season, the athletes will be nominated and one of our coaches works with the World Cup, one with the European Cup and then we will have an organization for training and competition at home, continues Fredrik.

Thoma new manager on the women side

Christian Thoma, from the South Tyrol in Italy, has for many years been the coach of the Swedish Women’s Team. Now that Melin has become national team manager, he steps in and becomes Women’s Head Coach.

- In training group one, all the established World Cup skiers took steps forward during last year's season. Behind them, there are many athletes in group two that developed very positively and several of them also got the opportunity to try out the World Cup. I think it looks good and it will be interesting to work with them and follow the development of these skiers, says Christian.

Both men and women have their own training group for the speed disciplines. Numerically not as big as the training groups on the tech side.

Women’s team:

Training Group 1