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For young elite athletes, the possibility to combine education with systematic training is of great importance to become an elite athlete on a national or international level. In Sweden there are 50 national elite sport schools (RIG) at upper secondary education. For elite athletes there are risks of injuries that interrupt training, inhibit progression of performance and some of the injured may get lifelong symptoms. For students at RIG there has shown to be a high prevalence of injuries. Preliminary results from two different studies show a high prevalence of sport injuries, mainly overuse injuries, among RIG-students. It is reasonable to believe that the coaches at RIG play a big part of preventing sport injuries. Based on the fact that sports injuries seems to have a high prevalence among RIG-students, the aim of this study was to investigate educational background and self rated competence among coaches at RIG. A web survey was conducted and sent to all the RIG-coaches in Sweden. 99 responses were received out of 162 that were sent out, whereas 82 % were men and 18 % were women. The result shows a remarkable difference regarding educational background. One quarter of the respondents had their highest level of education in primary school, upper secondary school or folk high school. Three quarters had their highest level of education from university, with or without a degree. Only a third of them had a college degree in teaching. Nearly a fifth of the coaches had a teacher education in special sports. Almost all of them had experience in the sport in which they taught, and the majority of them had been active at a high level. In light of present results, we hope that the number of coaches with a certified teacher education in special sports will increase significantly to ensure a higher quality of education and a healthy performance development for the students, which will hopefully reduce the risk of sports injuries.