At the age of 25, Pytlick won the Danish Championship and the Cup with GOG´s female team - a brilliant result which he repeated the following year. He was also Danish Champion and Cup winner with the men´s team in GOG before he took over as national coach from the legendary Ulrik Wilbek in 1997. At his first championship Pytlick won a silver medal at the Women´s European Championship in 1998 and in 2000 he won the first of his two Olympic gold medals at the games in Sydney. Two years later with his brilliant assistant coach Kim Jensen won the European Championship in Denmark and in 2004 he defended the Olympic title in Athens and won silver at the European Championship in Hungary. After a small break, Pytlick is back with the national team and committed until 2012.

Coach comments

”Back in the international limelight again after having missed out on both the World Championships in France 2007 and the Olympic Games in Beijing this August, the Danish national team is prepared to take very small steps forward towards our first major goal which is a good result at the European Championships in Denmark 2010. We are in the process of building a new young team - and fortunately a lot of very talented players will during the next couple of years proceed from the ranks of our youth teams who have been extremely successful during a long period. Players such as Line Jorgensen, Camilla Dalby and Susan Thorsgaard are the first on a hopefully very long list of talented players from the Danish youth academy and hopefully they will gain a lot of experience from these championships where they are playing with and against a lot of very skilful and experienced players.”

For many years captain of the Danish team, Rikke Skov is a key player both on and off the field. She won the Olympic championship in 2004, and silver at the European Championship in the same year. At club level she won the Champions League in 2006, she was a finalist 2001, she won the EHF Cup 1999 and 2004 and up until now she has won an amazing 7 Danish Championships and 3 cup finals. Defensively she is both physically and tactically extremely strong and she knows how to organise and encourage her team-mates. In the attack Rikke Skov also relies on her physical power and her shot is very hard and very accurate.

An all time favourite with the Danish handball supporters Karin Mortensen has played many fantastic matches in the Danish goal, and she seems to get better and better the more experience she gets. Almost out of nowhere she was the ultimate key player when Denmark in 2002 won the European Championship in Aarhus, but two years before she was actually in the squad which won gold at the Olympic Games in Sydney. Of course the tall, quick and tactically very clever goalkeeper also played an important role, when Denmark four years later defended the Olympic title in Athens.