Charlotte Kalla directs sharp criticism at several national team leaders in the new book “Shame on those who give”.
Now former national team manager Rikard Grip answers.
– We all have different perceptions and approaches to different things, he says.
In the book, the skiing legend writes that Grip, now the general secretary of the Swedish Biathlon Federation, is both afraid of conflict and “perhaps the worst in the world at delegating tasks and taking help from others”.
– That will be up to her. It’s nothing I’m familiar with and we all have different perceptions and approaches to different things, says Grip, who in 2019 left the national ski team after ten years as national team captain and national team manager.
TT: Do you recognize yourself in the criticism?
– If I look far back, there can certainly be things that were done back then that could have been done differently. But I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of conflict, absolutely not. On the other hand, it can certainly be perceived as that I have a very strong need for control because I want things to be good.
Grip describes the relationship with Kalla as “very professional”.
– We both had a clear goal of getting things as good as possible. Sometimes you looked at things exactly the same way and other times you didn’t quite have the same picture.
He does not want to go into more detail about whether there was something in particular that people had different opinions about.
– Should it be, it’s nothing I want to comment on right now. What was then was then and now is now.
Former union director Ola Strömberg also receives criticism from Kalla. “I never trusted that what he told us would come true,” she writes in the book.
Strömberg does not want to respond to the criticism.
“The water has flowed under the bridges,” he writes in a text message to TT.
TIM DAHLBACKA/TT
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