Swiss bobsleigh pilot Beat Hefti had to endure more than five years before he finally received his gold medal from the Olympic Games in Sochi. This had financial consequences.
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- Beat Hefti and Alex Baumann received Olympic gold from 2014 retroactively in 2019, as the Russian winner Alexander Zubkov was disqualified for doping.
- The gold bonuses were paid to him retrospectively by the bobsleigh association and Swiss Olympic. "But in terms of sponsorship, of course, I didn't have the years I could have exploited. But it is what it is."
- Incidentally, Zubkov was acquitted of doping charges in Russia, where he is still considered an Olympic champion and as such receives a lifelong pension from the state.
It was June 28, 2019 and the thermometer showed 35 degrees. People were dancing, singing and celebrating at the open air in St. Gallen's Sittertobel. And Beat Hefti, the Swiss bobsleigh pilot, was also celebrating what was probably his greatest success. Bobsleigh in June? Exactly. On that very day, Hefti and his co-pilot Alex Baumann were presented with the gold medal from the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi after almost five and a half years. The supposed winner, Russia's Alexander Zubkov, had been convicted of doping. The silver medal winners from Switzerland inherited the triumph.
Hefti, now 47 years old, remembers in the Olympic talk "Legends for eternity". "I first heard in 2016 that I could still win the gold medal. But at first I just laughed." Wrongly so. The International Bobsleigh Federation investigated persistently. The Russians delayed, dragging the verdict from court to court. But then, in March 2019, Subkov's doping offense was official.
"That was of course the icing on the cake, getting silver after gold," says Hefti. He and his buddy Baumann had also been satisfied with second place. "In Sochi, we were sure that was the best possible result." The Russians had done everything they could to give their own athletes an advantage. Hefti explains: "All nations were allowed to complete 40 runs in the ice channel - the Russians as many as they wanted. In the end, they did more than 400 runs with several teams. So they could test everything. Those were advantages that you can't make up for."
Ski jumper had to wait 50 years for Olympic gold!
There was certainly nothing else that could be made up for. Hefti traveled the country for five years as a silver medal winner and not as an Olympic champion - a clear financial disadvantage. "I couldn't market the gold medal." At least the bobsleigh federation and Swiss Olympic paid him the bonuses. "But in terms of sponsorship, of course I didn't have the years I could have exploited. But it is what it is."
Subkov fared better in this respect: the doping offender was acquitted in Russia and receives a lifelong pension for his gold medal. Different countries, different customs.
Nevertheless, the Heftis threw a big party in summer 2019. More than 700 people celebrated the Appenzeller - friends, family, people from the village. "That made up for a lot," says Hefti, even if he regrets a little that he didn't experience the unbridled joy after a winning run directly in Sochi. "In the end, it's mainly the emotions that stay with you." More than anything financial, he says.
And perhaps the story of Anders Haugen is a small consolation for Hefti: the US-American ski jumper with Norwegian roots had to wait 50 years before he received his gold medal from the 1924 Games in Chamonix in 1974 - the jury had made a miscalculation.
