To win the most prestigious titles at the Sports Awards in Zurich, it was necessary to ski. Marco Odermatt and Lara Gut-Behrami were honored.
For a different year, the results remained the same. For the second year in a row, Marco Odermatt and Lara Gut-Behrami were voted male and female athletes of the year. This marks the fourth consecutive award for the world’s best skier and the third for the Swiss athlete from Ticino, following his victories in 2016 and 2023.
With this fourth consecutive victory, ‘Super Marco’ achieves a remarkable first in the history of the Sports Awards. Even tennis legend Roger Federer, who won the title seven times, never managed to achieve more than two consecutive awards. Odermatt beat Ticino swimmer Noè Ponti and decathlete long jumper Simon Ehammer.
Having secured his third consecutive overall crystal globe and having won three small globes (downhill, giant slalom and Super-G), the skier from Nidwalden recently broke the record for the most victories by a Swiss male skier, surpassing 40 Pirmin Zurbriggen wins to reach a total of 41.
Like ‘Odi’, Lara Gut-Behrami won the overall World Cup title in 2024. The skier from Comano currently has 45 victories, although she is yet to secure her first victory of the season. She beat pole vaulter Angelica Moser and Olympic shooting champion Chiara Leone from Aargau.
-In team sports, however, there were no awards for hockey or football. The Team of the Year award went to beach volleyball players Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner. After winning bronze at the recent Olympic Games, they triumphed over the Swiss ice hockey and football teams. The ice hockey team brought home silver from the World Championships in Prague, while the footballers were eliminated on penalties in the quarter-finals of the Euro by England. Now separated after nine years together, Hüberli and Brunner emulate Patrick Heuscher and Stefan Kobel, who won the prize in 2004.
Ice hockey takes solace in the fact that Patrick Fischer was named Coach of the Year after silver in Prague. This marks its second trophy after 2018, when Switzerland also won silver at the World Championships in Copenhagen.
As for football, after Yann Sommer in 2021 and Manuel Akanji in 2023, it was Granit Xhaka who was named MVP of the Year. The captain of the Swiss team outperformed ice hockey player Kevin Fiala and unihockey player Lara Heini. Excellent with Bayer Leverkusen, the 32-year-old was also the first Swiss player since 1996 to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or.
The great lady of the Paris Paralympics, with six medals including five gold, Catherine Debrunner logically won the Paralympic Athlete of the Year award.
