The Swiss track and field athletes win more medals at the European Championships in Munich than ever before at a major event. It’s a systematic success. It is also based on the fact that a major bank decided to invest in this sport.
Ditaji Kambundji walks in the footsteps of her older sister Mujinga.
The Swiss track and field athletes won six medals at the European Championships in Munich, more than ever before. The last exploit was achieved by Ditaji Kambundji, Mujinga’s ten-years-younger sister, European champion over 200 m on Friday and previously a silver medalist over 100 m. Half of the Swiss podium places and a whole set of medals go to a family. This is no coincidence, but the system behind the successes of the past few days goes beyond the Bernese sisters.
Mujinga Kambundji is the leading figure in Swiss athletics because she showed what is possible when you believe in yourself and consistently follow your path. When she moved to Germany in 2013 and became a professional athlete, her level of performance was just enough to qualify for European Championships. Nine years later, she has collected seven international medals, including gold at the 2022 World Indoor Championships over 60m.
The EM 2014 skilfully used
For Mujinga Kambundji, as for many other athletes, the home European Championships 2014 were something of an awakening experience. The association made clever use of the occasion to show them perspectives. The limits were set as low as possible, the result was a record delegation of 53 women and men. Swiss athletics had started to work its way out of a low. In 2014 there was clearly more mass than class, the only medal won by Kariem Hussein, gold over 400 m hurdles.
The majority of the EM delegation from 2014 then oriented themselves back to the national level. But for some, the EM participation was a kind of initial spark. In 2016 in Amsterdam, the Swiss team won what was then the record number of five medals; In 2018 in Berlin, four athletes stood on the podium. They were all part of the Zurich 2014 generation, had continued to invest in sport and had at least advanced to the top in Europe.
The highlight: Mujinga Kambundji becomes European Champion over 200 m.
It is one of the remarkable achievements of Swiss Athletics that the preparations for the home European Championships were already thought beyond and the work actually continued. One could have contented oneself with Hussein’s EM gold. After all, in recent decades, Swiss athletics has lived almost exclusively from a few exceptional talents: shot putter Werner Günthör, for example, 800m runner André Bucher and marathoner Viktor Röthlin.
For a long time it was not possible to use the attention that was generated for the sport for a positive, sustainable dynamic. This obviously required championships in their own country. It is remarkable that their effect extended beyond the 2014 generation. She was the only one left on the podium at Euro 2022, Mujinga Kambundji, and yet there were more podiums than ever before. The other medal winners are all no more than 22 years old, for them the days in the Letzigrund are at best fond childhood memories.
Ditaji Kambundji, bronze medalist in the 100m hurdles.
And yet they are at least indirectly products of the championships of the time. Because when the award of the European Championship to Zurich was certain, investments were made not only in the top, but also in the breadth. The association could not have done it alone, in 2004 it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it started the EM year with equity of almost 150,000 francs.
Despite this, the Kids Cup was launched in 2011, an event intended to bring athletics back into schools. It was and is organized by Weltklasse Zürich, the organizer of the big athletics meeting, but the big bank UBS was an important source of inspiration. When signing as a partner of the European Championships, she negotiated that the event would be sustainable for the sport.
The bank also became a partner of Swiss Athletics and name sponsor of the Kids Cup, which has now moved well over a million children. Previously, she was long associated with the Weltklasse Zürich and Athletissima meetings, both of which were also involved in the working group responsible for organizing the 2014 European Championships. All of this shows how important these major events in Zurich and Lausanne are for Swiss athletics.
The Kids Cup is the world’s most successful youth athletics project.
The Kids Cup not only moved children, but had an enormous influence on the entire development of athletics in Switzerland. There has been talk of the Generation Kids Cup for several years because athletes who first caught the eye there have found their way to the top. Simon Ehammer played football and caught the eye of an athletics coach when he took part in a cantonal final in Appenzell in the first year of the Kids Cup.
He allowed himself to be persuaded to do a trial session and this year won bronze at the World Championships in the long jump and silver at the European Championships in the decathlon. There has never been a decathlete on the podium in an individual discipline before. Without the Kids Cup, Ehammer might be chasing the ball in a lower-class Appenzell football club today.
Annik Kälin, Ricky Petrucciani and Ditaji Kambundji also took part in the Kids Cup and are now European Championship medal winners. Together with Ehammer, they form the tip of the iceberg. The intensified promotion has already had a much stronger effect on the youngsters. Since 2011, the year of the big reset in Swiss athletics, there have been 59 medals in international title fights up to and including level U23.
Successful and refreshing
Not all of them will assert themselves among the active athletes, it is a lengthy and often difficult process to develop from a talent to a top athlete. Mujinga Kambundji is the best example of what it takes, the boys can use her as a guide. But there is no guarantee because sometimes the body simply cannot withstand the high loads for years.
The sprinter is a role model in another way. The public first noticed her at the 2014 European Championships, although she did not win a medal at the time. Her joy in running could be seen from afar and she became the face of the European Championships with her refreshing performances in front of the TV cameras. It was also noticeable in Munich how eloquently and freshly the Swiss athletes spoke into the microphones. That contrasted pleasantly with the phrases and generalities that footballers get injected by their PR consultants. With such athletes, there is no need to worry about the future of athletics.