European Athletics (EAA) – News – Swiss Athletics sets its sights on success at European Athletics Championships

Remembering how important home success is in capturing the public's imagination at major athletics events – think about  Great Britain's four golds at the London 2012 Olympic Games – the Swiss athletics federation intends to bring the crowd to its feet at the Zurich 2014 European Athletics Championships.

Former German athletics federation field events coach Herbert Czingon has been recruited to bring the best out of Swiss athletes, announced Swiss Athletics technical director Peter Haas earlier this week.

"There is still a lot of work to be done. And there is no room for compromise if we are to succeed in 2014," said Haas.

"We were less successful than we had hoped in 2012. Our athletes were not able to translate their work into convincing results. Setbacks are part of the road to success but it is vital that we draw the right conclusions from them," he added.

At London 2012 this summer, no Swiss athlete made the top eight of their event and at the Helsinki 2012 European Athletics Championships only the two 4x100m relay teams and long jumper Irene Pusterla finished in a similar position.

However, the situation was a little better in 2010 at that year's European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, when Viktor Röthlin won the men's marathon gold medal and there were three other top eight finishers.

Czingon, 60, is a renowned international coaching authority and will be working in particular with Swiss pole vault record holder Nicole Büchler and the 2007 European Athletics Junior Championships pole vault bronze medallist Anna Katharina Schmid in Zurich itself.

He will also take the young Swiss decathlon talents Luca di Tizio and Dominik Alberto under his wing as well as other Swiss field event hopefuls.

Weltklasse Zürich, the organisation behind the famous annual athletics meeting which has hosted a Samsung Diamond League final in recent years, has also pledged its support members of all Swiss clubs.

In a project aimed at creating potential finalists and helping them focus completely on their athletics career, the Weltklasse Zürich programme includes support for the likes of Pusterla, Röthlin, Lisa Urech, Jonas Fringeli, Simon Walter, Alex Wilson, Léa and Ellen Sprunger, Nicola Spirig, Nicole Büchler, Anna Katharina Schmid and Kariem Hussein.

Swiss athletes will also have additional access to the best physiotherapy thanks to an agreement with the renowned physiotherapist Daniel Troxler and the St Moritz Tourist Board has become a new partner of Swiss Athletics, which will give middle and long distance runners the opportunity to use this area as a high altitude training base.

A pdf of the official Zurich 2014 bulletin for this year can be downloaded here.

European Athletics  (EAA) – News