Norwegian Coaching Duo for Switzerland 

Karoline Moen Guidon and Erik Bråten are signed as head coaches for the Swiss national cross-country team from and including the 2023/2024 season and at least through the 2026 Olympics. 

Moen Guidon will be responsible for the women’s national team together with Ivan Hudac. Bråten will be responsible for the men, together with François Faivre. 

The two Norwegian coaches will, among other things, be responsible for the sprint specialist Nadine Fähndrich, who is one final place away from winning the sprint World Cup this season. 

Ready To Go All In

Bråten tells Langrenn.com that they are now selling the apartment in Norway and moving down to Switzerland as soon as possible to go “all in” for the assignment from day one. 

“We are very much looking forward to the job. Both find top sports fascinating and have been coaches at the World Cup level before. It’s fun to work with a team that is a bit of an underdog, and almost everyone is, apart from the Norwegian and Swedish teams,” says Bråten to Langrenn.com. 

The coaching duo is not the only Norwegians in the organization. Last summer, Guri Knotten was hired as managing director and head of Nordic branches in the Swiss Ski Association. 

Bråten and Moen Guidon contacted Knotten last autumn and expressed their interest. That thread was picked up during the spring, resulting in a three-year contract for both. 

The article continues below.

Great Expectations

From the Swiss team’s side, there are great expectations for the Norwegian coaches. 

“When we strengthen the coaching staff on the elite teams with Karoline Moen Guidon and Erik Bråten, we get a young duo with a strong professional background, energy, and a strong connection to Switzerland. Together with Ivan Hudac and François Faivre, we have four equal coaches who will lead a powerful team of athletes and embark on the coming season with great ambitions,” says cross-country manager Lars Brönnimann about the new coaching staff. 

The team is headquartered in Davos, Switzerland. 

Broad Competence And Experience

The two newly employed coaches both have long and broad coaching experience. 

Karoline Moen Guidon has a master’s degree in exercise science and has been the head coach for Team Aker Dæhlie’s recruiting team NextGen and the club Åsen IL for the last season. Before that, she was the head coach of Liechtenstein’s national cross-country team. Incidentally, the 32-year-old from Trysil is also the daughter of former World Champion Anita Moen, who was on the Norwegian elite national team for 18 seasons. 

Bråten is the successful coach behind Ragnhild Gløersen Haga’s return to the national team ahead of the 2022/23 World Cup season and continued as her coach in addition to the national team this winter. Before that, Bråten was head coach of the Canadian cross-country national team for four seasons. 

Incidentally, Guri Knotten also has broad expertise on the coaching side. She was head coach of the Swiss cross-country team from 2010 to 2014 and was then responsible for, among others, Dario Cologna when he won his World Championships and Olympic medals in 2013 and 2014. 

Knotten has also been the manager of Marit Bjørgen for several years and project manager in the application process for the World Championships 2025 in Granåsen. Moreover, Guri Knotten was on the Norwegian cross-country national team from 1995 until the turn of the millennium. 

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