Keystone
Heinz Frei competed in his final world championship races at the Para-cycling World Championships in Zurich in September 2024. The 66-year-old Solothurn has shaped the sport for more than 40 years.
One way or another, it is difficult to imagine the sports scene without Heinz Frei. But in September 2024, the Solothurn closed another chapter of his unique career as a top athlete with two races at the Para-cycling World Championships in Zurich. A career that offered its first highlights on the biggest possible stage with the Paralympic Games in Stoke Mandeville and New York in 1984 with three gold medals in athletics. This will be the start of an incomparable collection of medals.
With a total of 27 medals (including 14 gold) at the Summer Paralympic Games (the last at 63 in Tokyo in 2021 in the handbike road race) and 8 in cross-country skiing at the Winter Games (including a gold), Frei has established a brand that is difficult to surpass in Switzerland. Which has to do with the progressive professionalization of sport. In addition, there are 14 world championship titles in wheelchair and handbike racing. During Frei’s 40 years of activity in top sport, enormous progress has taken place in all respects, which today partly allows athletes to make a living from sport.
This is a change that was also made possible thanks to Heinz Frei. The pioneer distinguished himself in his career not only by his hard work and attention to detail, but also by the fact that he used his successes to provide a platform for parasport and bring it to a wider audience.
Frei still acts today as an ambassador and speaker who wants to pave the way for young talents to enter the sport. Thanks in part to his pioneering work, Swiss athletes today benefit from the conditions and structures that allow them to compete at the top of the world.
