Sportsman of the Year: Kambundji challenges the four Olympic champions, Odermatt celebrates with Federer

By far the biggest cheer at the Sports Awards didn’t belong to a winner, but to someone who had withdrawn. Tennis star Roger Federer surprised 400 guests invited to Sunday night’s gala with his unannounced visit to the television studio.

The 41-year-old received an honor award from Federal Councilor Viola Amherd and made an early appointment with the sports minister for a tennis match. “If you find the time for it, I have it,” Federer said. And he promised the Swiss sports celebrities gathered in the hall: “I’ll stay a little longer and party.”

An Olympic victory is considered the most valuable achievement in sport. Those who return home from the Olympics with gold can count on good chances in the year-end athlete elections. While Beijing-winning men’s skicrosser Ryan Regez didn’t even make the final six ticket, the women’s team included Corinne Suter (downhill), Lara Gut-Behrami (super-G), Michelle Gisin (combined) and Mathilde Gremaud (Slopestyle) a quartet to choose from.

However, the splendor of Olympic gold was not enough to defeat track and field athlete Mujinga Kambundji in favor of the public. The European 200 m champion and the 60 m indoor world champion scored with her own personality and repeated her 2019 victory. The award is undoubtedly deserved. “It’s the highest honor an athlete can receive in Switzerland,” says the 30-year-old sprinter.

Perhaps Suter and Co. lost because no skiers made it to the big televised gala. This circumstance was discussed behind closed doors, above all with the Olympic downhill champion Corinne Suter, who for many sports enthusiasts has become the favorite in the race chosen by the athletes. Unlike Gut-Behrami and Gisin, the Schwyz native did not participate in any races this weekend and remained in Switzerland.

However, Marco Odermatt has shown that even racing is no obstacle for a visit to the TV studio. However, the 25-year-old was cleared to start the journey from World Cup venue Val d’Isère to the canton of Nidwalden on Sunday morning by helicopter. For the giant slalom Olympic champion, every hour of relaxation counts, because after the short celebration, an unprecedented sports program awaits in Odermatt in the coming days.

In Val Gardena and Alta Badia there will be a Super-G, two downhills and two giant slaloms between Friday and Tuesday. It leaves it open whether the overall World Cup winner, who has made a sensational start to the season, will participate in all races. He wants to take it day by day and listen to his body.

For the first time since 2007, an athlete, Marco Odermatt, has won the award several times in a row. At the time, Roger Federer, the seven-time Swiss athlete of the year, even managed a hat-trick.

Federer is one of the reasons why an Olympic victory over the past 20 years hasn’t always equated to being voted Swiss Athlete of the Year. In 2004 the fencer Marcel Fischer suffered, two years later the snowboarder Philipp Schoch and in 2014 the tennis star even ousted Dario Cologna.

Cologna, the most successful Swiss winter athlete in history, won the award once in 2013, but curiously never in the year of his four Olympic victories. For women, since 1980, there has only been one other Olympic champion athlete in front of the sun: In 2018, triathlete Daniela Ryf was Swiss athlete of the year and non-combined gold winner Michelle Gisin.