The eighth medal for Switzerland at the Olympic Games in Paris is the crowning achievement of a partnership and friendship.
Nina Brunner (l.) says about herself and Tanja Hüberli: “We have the same idea of how to deal with each other. That helps us a lot, even though we are different.”
Imago / Daniela Porcelli
The beach volleyball players Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner stand there for a long time, their arms wrapped around each other. Then they dance and jump through the sand, sprint up to the stands to hug their coaches in the middle of the audience. They have just defeated the Australians Mariafe Artacho/Taliqua Clancy in the bronze medal match 21:17, 21:15, giving Switzerland its eighth medal at the Olympic Games in Paris.
The medal is not only the crowning achievement of an eight-year sports partnership between Hüberli, 31 years old, and Brunner, 28, but also of a friendship that has grown over the years they have been together.
For Switzerland, it is the third Olympic medal in this sport, which has been an Olympic sport since 1996. The other two were also bronze awards: in 2004 in Athens by the duo Patrick Heuscher / Stefan Kobel and in 2021 in Tokyo by Anouk Vergé-Dépré / Joana Mäder.
Hüberli and Brunner entered Paris in excellent form, but without formulating a clear goal to the outside world. After the quarter-finals, they said that everything that came next would be an encore. The fact that they did not want to load the games with too much importance is also based on the experience of Tokyo 2021.
They had been so focused on the Olympic tournament, which had been postponed for a year, and had prepared so meticulously, that the disappointment after being knocked out in the round of 16 was huge. “Of course the Olympics are the biggest thing,” said Hüberli in the run-up to Paris. “But it was also good to experience the whole thing in Tokyo and put it into perspective.”
Learning to want to win
According to their coach Christoph Dieckmann, the Olympic defeat contributed a lot to the team’s development. The disappointment was turned into a title win at the European Championships the week after Tokyo. “They went there for the first time in their careers and said: only victory counts, that’s what we’re going to do now!” says Dieckmann.
Dieckmann feels that the mental progress of the two since Tokyo has been great. In beach volleyball, a lot of pressure can be put on a single player, and weaknesses are immediately exploited on the field. Those who can ignore all influencing factors have an advantage. “We discussed this a lot and knew that there was still something in it,” says Dieckmann, “in terms of basic trust, that they can stay true to themselves in all situations, and in terms of their will to win. It’s a never-ending process anyway.”
Nina Brunner at the service.
Robert F. Bukaty / AP
In their daily training, the two are hard workers who like to hone their deficits and details, says their trainer. Nevertheless, they manage to look at the whole professional circus with a certain relaxedness. Former beach volleyball player Nadine Zumkehr once told Brunner that she should appreciate and enjoy life as a professional athlete, even when things aren’t going so well or she reaches her limits. That helped Brunner early on “not to see things too narrowly”. The duo laughs and enjoys singing together.
In recent years, they have established themselves among the world’s best. After starting in 2016, they soon attracted attention with individual top results, such as podium places at major tournaments. In 2018 they won silver at the European Championships, in 2019 they came fourth at the World Championships, and in 2021 and 2023 they became European champions. Last April, they became the first Swiss duo to win a tournament in the top Elite 16 category in Mexico.
And in Paris, too, Hüberli and Brunner played a strong tournament almost throughout. They only had to give up a first set in the semifinals – after winning the first comfortably in 19 minutes and having a match point in the second. But in the decisive points, when it came to reaching the final, the Canadians had the better nerves. The Swiss left the court dejected.
Survived pulmonary embolism
The fact that Hüberli and Brunner (initially Betschart) have been playing together for eight years is an unusually long time. On the one hand, this is obvious in Switzerland, as there are not countless top players. For the Brazilians, for example, the temptation to look for a new partner more often is great. On the other hand, Hüberli and Brunner complement and understand each other excellently, they have long called each other friends and have also survived challenging times: for example in the winter of 2019/2020, when Hüberli suffered a pulmonary embolism.
A beach volleyball duo spends so much time together that there has to be a certain basic understanding of each other. There were years when the two were away for 300 days and saw each other more often than their life partners.
“We very often know what the other person’s opinion, answer or view is when a topic comes up,” says Brunner, who married ice hockey player Damien Brunner in 2021. “And we have the same idea of how to deal with each other. That helps us a lot, even if we are different.”
Here is Tanja Hüberli, the louder one, who gets the team going, who sets the direction. She tells “Blick” that her autobiography is called “Always on the edge – between genius and madness”, always a little crazy and chaotic. There is Nina Brunner, more reserved, more structured, a calming influence. Brunner says she is still happy when she sees Tanja. “Our relationship is pretty harmonious, which is not the case for everyone on the tour.”
Eighth medal for Switzerland! 🥉
Congratulations to Tanja Hueberli and Nina Brunner 🇨🇭 on their fantastic win during the women’s beach volleyball bronze medal game at the #Paris2024 Summer Olympics! pic.twitter.com/yXDi8aaslq
— About Switzerland (@AbtSwitzerland) August 9, 2024
As a beach volleyball team, they function like a small company that books its own travel, usually also its accommodation, and organizes training sessions with other teams along the way. And you never know how long you will be staying where – for example, 12 teams are seeded in the Elite 16 tournaments, the rest have to qualify and travel around the world for just one game.
Next week, Hüberli/Brunner will be heading to the European Championships in the Netherlands. This time, they will bring home an Olympic medal instead of a disappointment.
