Heinz Frei competed in his last world championship races at the Para-Cycling World Championships in Zurich in September 2024. The 66-year-old from Solothurn shaped the sport for over 40 years.
06.01.2025, 04:10
SDA
Somehow it's hard to imagine the sports scene without Heinz Frei. But in September 2024, the man from Solothurn closed another chapter in his unique career as a top athlete with the two races at the Para-Cycling World Championships in Zurich. A career that began in 1984 with three gold medals in athletics at the Paralympics in Stoke Mandeville and New York. It was to be the beginning of an incomparable collection of medals.
With a total of 27 medals (14 of them gold) at the Paralympic Summer Games (the last at the age of 63 in Tokyo in 2021 in the handbike road race) and eight in cross-country sledging at the Winter Games (including one gold), Frei has set a mark that is unlikely to be surpassed in Switzerland. This is primarily due to the increasing professionalization of the sport. Added to this are 14 World Championship titles in the racing wheelchair and handbike. In the 40 years that Frei has been active in elite sport, there has been an enormous development in all areas, which in some cases now enables athletes to make a living from sport.
It is a change that was also made possible thanks to Heinz Frei. The pioneer not only distinguished himself in his career through hard work and meticulousness, but also by using his successes to offer para-sport a platform and make it known to a wider public.
Frei still acts today as an ambassador and speaker who wants to pave the way for young talents to enter the sport. Thanks in part to his pioneering work, Swiss athletes today benefit from conditions and structures that enable them to compete at the top of the world.
