Marco Odermatt and Lara Gut-Behrami elected Swiss athletes of 2024

Marco Odermatt (27 years old) and Lara Gut-Behrami (33 years old) continue to reign over Swiss sport. As in 2023, the Nidwalden and the Ticino were elected Swiss athletes of the year at the Swiss Sports Awards gala, organized in Zurich by the SSR. An expected verdict, as they dominated the Alpine Skiing World Cup. Both winners of the big crystal globe, they also won five small globes: those of super-G and giant as well as that, for Odermatt, of downhill. A track record enhanced by 19 cumulative victories.

This is the fourth year in a row that Marco Odermatt has been honored at the Sports Awards. An unprecedented series in the history of the ceremony, which even Vreni Schneider and Roger Federer (winners five and seven times respectively) have not accomplished.

Author of phenomenal Short Course World Championships last month, with three gold medals and three world records, Ticino swimmer Noè Ponti (23 years old) finished 2nd in the voting rankings. He is ahead of Appenzell resident Simon Ehammer (24), world indoor heptathlon champion and bronze medalist at the European Championships.

The Jura rider Steve Guerdat (42 years old), silver medalist in show jumping at the Olympics, the Saint-Gallois Dominic Lobalu (26 years old), European champion in the 10,000 m and bronze medalist in the 5000 m, as well as the Genevan Roman Mityukov (24 years old), bronze medalist in the 200m backstroke at the Olympics, vice-world champion and bronze medalist to the Europeans, were also among the nominees.

Lara Gut-Behrami is acclaimed for the third time after 2016 and 2023. She was in competition with Zurich’s Angelica Moser (27), European pole vault champion, and Julie Derron (28), silver medalist in the triathlon at the Paris Olympic Games, as well as Fribourgeoise Mathilde Gremaud (24 years old), victorious in the Park World Cup & Pipe as well as small globes of slopestyle and Big Air, the Bernese Mujinga Kambundji (32 years old), European champion in the 200 m, and the Argovian Chiara Leone (26 years old), who brought Switzerland its only medal gold at the 2024 Olympics, in three-position rifle shooting over 50 m. Discipline of which she also became European champion in May.

On the other hand, Granit Xhaka (32 years old) was awarded the MVP distinction. The captain of the Swiss football team is an indisputable executive both in the selection and in his club Bayer Leverkusen, with whom he won the championship, the Cup and the German Super Cup and reached the final of the Europa League.

The title of best coach of the year went to Zougois Patrick Fischer (49), coach of a Swiss ice hockey team finalist at the World Cup.

The team of the year award went to the beach volleyball pair Nina Brunner/Tanja Hüberli. The 29-year-old from Zug and the 32-year-old from Zurich adorned themselves with bronze in Paris. The culmination of a fruitful association, started in 2015, which resulted in two gold medals at the European Championships, in 2021 and 2023, as well as silver in 2018 and 2022. The two friends announced their separation in early October.

Argovian Lucia Acklin (18 years old) was voted best talent after becoming vice-champion of the U20 heptathlon world last summer. She notably beat the Valais skier Malorie Blanc (20 years old), who was crowned junior world champion in super-G and team combined.

Finally, Thurgau’s Catherine Debrunner (29) received the prize for best parathlete thanks to her golden harvest in the French capital (5000 m, 800 m, 1500 m, 400 m, marathon). It thus interrupts the domination of Marcel Hug, winner nine times including in the three previous editions.