After strong European Championships and Olympic Games, Swiss athletics will soon be coming to a close with a successful year. At Weltklasse Zürich, long jumper Simon Ehammer secured the only podium finish in a Diamond League discipline.
Mujinga Kambundji after her 100 m race at Weltklasse Zürich.
On a cool evening in Letzigrund, the farewell that the Swiss crowd gave to their athletes was particularly warm. Mujinga Kambundji summed it up after her eighth place in the 100 meters when she said that the joy of running at Weltklasse Zürich was a little greater than her energy tank at the end of an intensive season.
Most Swiss athletes felt the same. The women’s 4 x 100 m relay team won the event; in the disciplines that counted towards the Diamond League, Simon Ehammer came third in the long jump, even though he missed the eight-meter mark by two centimeters. The best athletes like him and Kambundji will be competing in the Diamond League final in Brussels in a week.
This is where a season ends in which Swiss athletes have raised the bar a little higher than before. The result for 2024: Nine medals at the European Championships in Rome – that’s a record. Three fourth places at the Olympic Games in Paris – or four if you count Dominic Lobalu, who competed for Switzerland at the European Championships but for the Refugee Team at the Olympics. In addition, there is an indoor world championship title for Simon Ehammer and a double-digit number of Swiss records.
Despite these successes, there is no sign of rest or satisfaction; tears were also shed out of disappointment at missing out on finals or medals. They show how high the demands of Swiss athletes have become for themselves.
It all started with the 2014 European Championships in Zurich
This development began exactly ten years ago on this track in Zurich’s Letzigrund, at the European Championships. Kariem Hussein surprisingly won gold, and Mujinga Kambundji became the face of Swiss athletics in one fell swoop with her fourth and fifth places in the sprint and her loss of the baton at the start of the relay race. The way the Swiss Athletics Association and other protagonists such as Weltklasse Zürich used the major event in their own country to set up a functioning youth development program is a model example today.
Mujinga Kambundji, now 32 years old, is still shaping Swiss athletics. She reliably manages to return to her highest level after difficult phases. After a whole year of foot problems, she started the 2024 season cautiously. But at the European Championships she defended her title in the 200 meters and came sixth in the 100 meters at the Olympic Games for the second time in a row – certainly the maximum that was possible.
Four of our fellow countrymen were even closer to the medals at the Stade de France in Paris. There was Simon Ehammer, the most promising candidate for a medal with his long jump record; but he wasted the decisive centimetres in front of the bar in his best jump. There was the pole vaulter Angelica Moser, who cleared 4.80 m in her first attempt, although she had only mastered this height for the first time a few weeks previously. This height is usually enough for an Olympic medal, but not this time.
There was Annik Kälin, who finished the heptathlon with a Swiss record and was still in a medal position until the last discipline. And there was Dominic Lobalu, who was only caught shortly before the finish line in the 5000 m. This meant that there was no Swiss Olympic medal since 1988, when Werner Günthör won bronze in the shot put. And yet the breadth of the world’s top athletes and also the disappointment show the new self-image of Swiss athletes.
The majority of athletes are still in the first half of their career
The only top performer in recent years, hurdler Jason Joseph, had a mixed season – but he won a bronze medal at the record-breaking European Championships in Rome. There, a Genevan recorded the most surprising success of the season: Timothé Mumenthaler, who became European champion over half a lap. At 21, he is still at the beginning of his career, like Ditaji Kambundji, 22. And even the more established Joseph, 25, and Moser, 26, could ideally compete in two more Olympic cycles.
Almost all of today’s top performers have already won medals in the junior categories. Swiss Athletics’ philosophy of letting as many talented athletes as possible gain experience at the U-Championships is paying off. Many of them enter the international elite stage with a self-confidence and a sense of achievement that seemed impossible just a few years ago.
At the end of August, Swiss Athletics sent a record delegation of 37 athletes to the U20 World Championships in Colombia. Of the 17 medals that Switzerland has ever won in this category, over 40 percent came in the last three years.
In Colombia, the women’s 4 x 100 m relay team won silver, among other things. One of the sprinters was Timea Rankl, who was only 15 years old. She had barely returned when she won the “The next Kambundji” competition on the eve of Weltklasse Zürich with an under-18 national record (11.61). The original Kambundji was there and congratulated her. However, the 32-year-old has no plans to hand the track over to the next generation any time soon: she recently announced that she wants to continue until the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.