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Popular Sports in Switzerland

Sports are popular in Switzerland both as events to be watched in stadiums or on television and as a personal activity. There are some sports that are probably specific to Switzerland, but the most popular sports are well known worldwide.

Popular Team Sports in Switzerland

Football (Soccer)

European football (or soccer, as North Americans call it) is by far the most popular sport in Europe and Switzerland is no exception. European football dominates sport reports on television, radio and in newspapers. There are different football leagues, two on national level and several more on regional level. North American style football plays no role in Switzerland.

*) Vaduz is the capital of the Principality of Liechtenstein, a very small independent country east of Switzerland. Liechtenstein shares lots of things with Switzerland (for example the currency, postal services, customs union) and so they are welcome at Switzerland's national sports events, too.

European football (soccer) is played everywhere throughout Switzerland both by large numbers of amateurs and by professional players. As large amonunts of money (high wages and huge transfer sums for top scorers) dominate the scene, only the big cities have a real chance to stay in the Super League. The economic center Zurich is present with two clubs corresponding to its number of inhabitants as well as to its economical mightyness. The financial side of the game seems to be quite risky, however: several clubs have become bankrupt in recent years, currently FC Servette Geneva has lost its fight for survival (2005-02-17). Smaller clubs consist of amateur footballers.

There are some women's football clubs in Switzerland with 14,200 active (licensed) players, but they really have a hard time gaining even a fraction of the enormous attention and popularity male footballers are given by the media and the public.

Ice-Hockey

* Playoffs
+ Playouts

The remarkable thing about icehockey in Switzerland is that there are five teams from small towns and villages among the top ten despite the fact that ice-hockey is dominated by professional teams. The top teams engage some foreign players (mostly from the USA, Canada or Sweden).

Volley-Ball

Volleyball is probably the most popular team sport among Swiss women.

Basket-Ball

15 out of 20 top basketball teams come from French speaking western Switzerland, four more from Italian speaking southern Switzerland. German speaking teams (one of twenty) seem to be without a chance - this is statistically definitely abnormal with 74% of the population living in German speaking Switzerland. In other words: there is a language-barrier in sports preferences. Again small towns and villages dominate the scene.

Hand-Ball

Handball seems to be a sport exclusively for the German speaking part of the population and while the big German speaking cities are present, there are some villages among the very best ...

Uni-Hockey

The Swiss women's uni-hockey team won the world champion title 2005 on June, 5th in Singapur in the final game against Finland. Since 1997 women's world championships in uni-hockey seem to be dominated by three nations: Sweden, Finland and Switzerland. This does not at all mean that uni-hockey would be extremely popular in Switzerland, it rather seems that uni-hockey is just a little less neglected in Switzerland than in other countries. We will see, whether the success of Switzerland's women team will make uni-hockey more popular ... Swiss champions are the Red Ants club from Winterthur.

Gymnastics and Athletics

Track and field athletics and gymnastics should not be underestimated though one will rarely find them on the sports pages of Swiss newspapers. Thousands of athletes meet regularly once a week or even more often for training (and sociability) throughout the country. There are some contests and above all there is the Eidgenössische Turnfest [Swiss Federal Gymnasts Meeting] where they all meet for a few days.

Swiss Runners

Jogging, mid- and long-distance running and nordic walking have become very popular among men, women and children in Switzerland over the last decade. More than 800,000 people (11 % of the total population) are active runners, joggers or nordic walkers. This year, 22 cities and alpine resorts organize so-called popular races. City races usually have different routes for elite runners (about 5 to 10 km / miles), normal adults and children/families (about 1.6 km / 1 mile). Individual time stamping for thousands of participants is based on starting numbers with integrated computer chips. In addition there are still some of the traditional armed races for men (longdistance races in Swiss Army uniforms with an army backpack and a rifle).

The table shows, by the way, that several races in alpine resorts were invented by or for British tourists (round distances in miles / feet) while popular races in cities are based on continental European standards (kilometers) or just on the local topology.

Popular Summer Sports in Switzerland

Next to running, activities like biking, mountain biking and skating on roller-blades are very popular in Switzerland. Hiking and climbing used to be on top of the list of summer sports once and are still quite widespread among the more than 30 year old generation. Clubs do exist for all of these sports, but still more people prefer to practise these sports individually.

Swimming (and sunbathing) are extremely popular in summer. Open air public swimming pools and lakeside swimming facilities can be found all over the country, they are usually open from end of May to mid September. All major towns and even many schools do have indoor swimming pools. All children do learn to swim in school,

Despite of rather expensive equipment, thousands of people can be seen riding on horseback, golfing, sailing, windsurfing, paragliding and river-rafting on weekends.

Popular Winter Sports in Switzerland

Skiing and Snowboarding

In the 1970's, children in Swiss schools learnt a song with the refrain "Alles fahrt Schii, Schii fahrt die ganzi Nation" [everybody is skiing, all the nation does] - and this was indeed quite true (except for the elder people). Downhill skiing is still very popular among the more than 30 year old and most families spend many weekends and at least one week of vacations in a ski-resort, younger people prefer snowboard riding to classical downhill skiing, however.

Cross-country skiing is the domain of the more than 40 year old. More than 12,000 skiers participate each year in the Engadin Skimarathon, Switzerland's World Loppet event.

Sports on Ice, Skating

All major towns and most alpine resorts in Switzerland have an ice-field that can be used from December to March. Many girls do take elementary courses in figure skating while boys prefer ice-hockey.

Successful Swiss Athletes

• Tennis:
  Roger Federer has been the WTA #1 male tennis player for a couple of years and is certainly one of the most successful ever;
  Martina Hingis, former WTA #1 female tennis player
• Skiing:
  Skiiers used to be Switzerland's most successful athletes in the 1970's. But as the majority of Switzerland's youth preferes snowboard riding to skiing, there are also more snowboard talents and Swiss snowboarders are able to qualify among the world elite: Daniela Meuli and Ursula Bruhin, Philipp Schoch and Urs Eiselin dominate the snowboard scene, while today's Swiss ski team is able to qualify among the top ten, but no longer among very best.
• Sailing:
  Switzerland's Alinghi sailing team was the first European team to win the America's Cup in 2003.
• Marathon:
  Viktor Röthlin European champion (2010).
• Triathlon:
  Natascha Badman and Brigitte Mac Mahon are among the world's leading iron women.
• Orienteering hike:
  Simone Niggli-Luder was 6 times world champion in orienteering hike.
• Figure skating:
  Stéphane Lambiel won the title of World Champion on 2005-03-17.
  Denise Biellmann did so in 1981.

Specific Sports in Switzerland

Schwingen [some kind of wrestling, performed in an arena covered with sawdust] is not well known outside Switzerland, but quite popular in rural areas of Switzerland. Swingers wear a typical kind of short brown trousers made from the same material as potato bags. Since the reward for the "king of the swingers" is a Muni [young bull] the popularity of this sport is rather limited in Swiss cities. The picture shows a parody on the 2004 swingers' festival displayed at Lucerne carnival, 2005.

Another rather unique sport in Switzerland is Hornussen: the hornusser knocks a nut through the air with a long flexible rod. Hornussen is limited to a small number of clubs in northern Switzerland and and a handfull of clubs in southern Germany.

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