Federer and Schneider? Choose your favorites now

On Sunday night, the television show “Sports Awards – the best from 70 years” will not honor the most successful sports personalities of the year, but the best since the awards ceremony began.

The corona pandemic has also dictated the sports calendar in recent months. From the Summer Olympics to the European Soccer Championships and the World Ice Hockey Championships to the Tour de Suisse and Athletissima in Lausanne, nothing could happen as planned in 2020.

This year there were always outstanding sporting achievements, also from the Swiss: the numerous medals of the World Cup and the European Cycling Championships, the crystal balls won in snow sports or the triumph of the Alps in the national ranking, to name just a few.

However, 2020 will go down in the annals as the year in which, for the first time in the history of the Sports Awards, the focus will not be on the most successful sports personalities of the year, but on the best since the ceremony began. award. In the five categories Athlete, Athlete, Team, Coach and Paralympic Athlete past winners are again available for choice. That was decided by the responsible electoral committee, made up of Swiss Olympic, the Swiss Olympic Athletes Commission, the SRG and the Swiss Association of Sports Journalists.

When “Töfflibueb” Lüthi surpassed the world star

A look at the chronicle of the Swiss athletes’ elections shows how the award ceremony has changed over the past seven decades. When Armin Scheurer, footballer, track and field athlete and sports teacher from Magglingen de Biel, was honored by Swiss sports journalists for his “sporting merits” in 1950, it was not just about the best performances.

The election took place in a small and familiar environment. Beginning in 1972, men and women were honored in separate categories. It was not until much later, with the entry of the major Credit Suisse bank in 1997, that the annual athlete elections became accessible to a wide audience. The awards ceremony has been broadcast live on SRG stations since 2001, with Credit Suisse serving as co-host and title sponsor until 2018. Meanwhile, the television gala has become one of the most popular shows, generating high ratings of audience year after year.

Sports awards

So 13.12. 20:05 – 22:35 | SRF 1

CH 2020 | 150 min

Sports awards were always good for surprises, as in 2005 when 19-year-old Tom Lüthi beat world star Roger Federer, who won Wimbledon and the US Open in the 125cc class, as the motorcycle world champion that very same. year. Many saw this as an affront to Federer, who months later received the World Sportsman of the Year award. That example shows that the outcome of such choices, in this case triggered by viewers, cannot always be rationally explained.

Federer was also a “permanent guest” at sports awards in subsequent years, though often only from training camp in Dubai. To date, the Basel bidder has been voted Swiss Sportsman of the Year seven times, more often than anyone else. Logically, it also placed in the top 6 in this year’s special elections.

From “Kugel-Werni” to “Gold-Vreni”

With the start of the 2021 tennis season being delayed, it is highly likely that Federer will be back live on the TV show for once. The record Grand Slam winner in the “Best Athlete” category is flanked by the two most successful Swiss Winter Olympians, Simon Ammann and Dario Cologna, the three-time world shot put champion Werner Günthör and the two ski aces Bernhard Russi and Pirmin Zurbriggen.

In the women’s category, Lise-Marie Morerod, Erika Reymond-Hess and Vreni Schneider have nominated three former top-level skiers. You’ll compete in the “Best Athlete” category against new figure skating queen Denise Biellmann, gymnast Ariella Kaeslin, and orientation icon Simone Niggli-Luder.

The so-called “Academy of Sports Awards” handles the nominations. The committee created specifically for this election consists of 120 honorees, all of whom have received a Sports Awards trophy in the past. Votes cast in advance make up 50 percent of the election, the other half will be contributed by viewers on Sunday via televoting.

The live broadcast from the Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen studios, moderated by Sandra Studer and Rainer Maria Salzgeber, begins at 8:05 pm and is broadcast on SRF 1, RTS 2 and RSI LA 2.

Hingis is not an option

When the best Swiss athletes are honored on Sunday, Martina Hingis will be absent. The entry-level tennis queen was excluded from the election.

Martina Hingis is undoubtedly one of the best athletes in this country. She was the youngest No. 1 in women’s tennis, winning 5 Grand Slam titles in singles, 13 in doubles and 7 in mixed. With her successes, the 40-year-old from eastern Switzerland, who has been nominated several times for sports awards, has opened the doors to Swiss tennis. In 1997 she received the award for Swiss Sportswoman of the Year.

The fact that Hingis was not in the top 6 in the “Best Female Athlete” pick is due to the fact that she never ran for election. The reason for this is a 2007 doping offense, when he tested positive for cocaine and was later banned from participating in the Olympic Games in Switzerland for two years.

Exactly this doping ban is now Hingis’s undoing. Because the electoral regulations include an ethical annex that establishes that the winners of sports awards will be excluded “who have been convicted of a doping crime during their career and have been suspended.”

Hingis isn’t the only former award winner to find this passage in the regulations fatal. The cycling world champions Oscar Camenzind and Urs Freuler or the Olympic champions Brigitte McMahon (triathlon) and Christine Stückelberger (dressage) did not enter the illustrious electoral list due to their past for doping.

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