Unspunnen winner Samuel Giger and wrestling king Joel Wicki will clash in the first round of the Swiss wrestling jubilee festival in Appenzell on Sunday.
It will be the first duel between the two since they clashed on the Rigi last year. Back then, the duel ended in a draw. In four of the six duels between the man from Thurgau and the man from Lucerne, there was no winner. Giger was able to put Wicki to the sawdust twice, most recently two years ago at the Baselstädtischer Schwingertag. Conversely, the man from Sörenberg is still waiting for his first victory against the north-eastern Swiss.
In the second absolute top pairing, Werner Schlegel and Fabian Staudenmann will go head-to-head. This is the revenge for the Anschwingen on the Schwägalp. On his way to victory, Staudenmann from Bern put the young Toggenburg native to the sawdust at the last mountain festival of the season three weeks ago and inflicted only his second defeat of the season. Schlegel has never been able to defeat Staudenmann, who together with Giger is one of the top favorites in Appenzell.
The duels between Armon Orlik and Adrian Walther and Marcel Bieri and Matthias Aeschbacher also stand out from the top pairings. Stefan Strebel, who as technical director of the Swiss Wrestling Federation single-handedly decided on the pairings for the first round, also chose the following pairings: Benjamin Gapany against Nick Alpiger, Domenic Schneider against Bernhard Kämpf, Curdin Orlik against Mike Müllestein and Damian Ott against Florian Gnägi. Severin Schwander and Lukas Döbeli as well as Sven Schurtenberger and Thomas Sempach will also go head-to-head.
Videos from the department
SDA
