For Ralph Stöckli, a good Swiss record, but not great

Switzerland brought home 14 medals from the Beijing Games. Enough to satisfy the head of mission of Swiss Olympic, who however also experienced some disappointments.

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Ryan Regez a «vengé» Fanny Smith.

“As head of mission, we can say that I have experienced a lot of happiness in the past two weeks, but some difficult times as well.” Former curler Ralph Stöckli took stock of the 2022 Winter Olympics on Sunday and it is true that there was food and drink on the Swiss side. He also wanted to thank China for having managed to organize these games and all the incredible local volunteers, so dedicated and smiling, even if their masks and visors did not help.

The record of 15 medals was not achieved. Blame it on an accumulation of 4th places and all the disappointments that go with “chocolate”. “It shows that it remains very difficult to reach the very high international level, assured the Saint-Gallois who had been “tanned” in Vancouver in 2010. We had big disappointments with alpine snowboarding, none of our athletes n was able to take the step forward. In slopestyle either, for men. A disappointment in acrobatic jumping as well. We had great potential. We know how strong they are and how hard they work.

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The race that caused so much ink to flow.

“Another disappointment was clearly Fanny Smith’s 4th place following her disqualification. It’s hard to understand, “he continued, while affirming that the rest of the file was in the hands of Swiss-Ski. This fact was the detonator, according to him, of the Swiss double the next day in ski-cross, on the Zhangjiakou track. “It’s exceptional what Ryan Regez and Alex Fiva showed. In my opinion, that was a strong response to what happened. Ryan is our flag bearer during the closing ceremony also for that, ”said the head of the delegation.

The soon-to-be 50-year-old Swiss has, inevitably, distributed a ton of good points as well: “The most impressive from our point of view was alpine skiing. It’s a real tradition with us, among other winter sports. It’s still exceptional to win 9 medals in the discipline and as many in gold (note: 5)! I am also happy with the two charms from Mathilde Gremaud. She has already won 3 in all and she is only 22 years old. And what regarding Jan Scherrer, who managed to win bronze by placing his new trick at the best time…”

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Beat Feuz, one of the great men of these Games.

Ice sports, as well as Nordic, curling or bobsleigh have returned empty-handed from China and it is necessary to react. “I hope that we can soon make progress once more in the Nordic disciplines, he replied on the subject. The men’s curling and ice hockey teams also failed to live up to expectations in Beijing. On the side of Swiss Olympic, we want to make our contribution in the field of the encouragement of sport so that the performances improve in these sectors within four years.

In four years, it will be in Italy, in conditions that everyone hopes will be much more open than the last two Olympic Games, disputed in Japan and China, in very restrictive sanitary bubbles. “This distance allowed athletes to focus almost exclusively on training and competition. Many of them told me that it had a positive effect on their performance, he countered. I hope the IOC has also noticed that some refocusing on the essentials is in the interest of all those involved, in the end.” If throwing stones in the pond was an Olympic discipline, this sentence would have deserved a diploma.