Sinisha Lüscher's path to the top of the sport of wrestling was not an easy one - it led through exclusion and an unshakeable will. blue News visited the top wrestler at home in Muhen AG.
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- Sinisha Lüscher (20) is one of the best wrestlers in the country. At the ESAF in Mollis, he won his first federal wreath at the age of 19. Most recently, he shone at the Solothurn Cantonal Championships and gave his competitors no chance.
- As a young wrestler, he joined the ranks of Samuel Giger and Fabian Staudenmann by winning the Swiss Young Wrestlers' Day - and is now working hard to one day win the title of king.
- The driving force in his childhood was his mother Petra. The single mother accompanied him through difficult times, when his skin color stood above his performance among certain young wrestlers.
- Lüscher managed to draw motivation from the insults. His older brother Noah (24), who was very close to a professional career in football, also became a driving force.
At the age of 19, Sinisha Lüscher achieved what other wrestlers dream of all their lives: last August, he won the Swiss national crown in Mollis. "It's unbelievable. It's mega nice that it worked out last year."
Lüscher showed his skills for the first time in August 2021. As a teenager, he won the Swiss Young Wrestlers' Day by a clear margin and thus joined an illustrious circle: Samuel Giger and Fabian Staudenmann also once won the event.
Insults turned into motivation
Now Lüscher has also arrived with the big baddies. This season, for the first time, he is swinging with three stars (symbolic for "Eidgenosse") behind his name. However, his rise was anything but a matter of course. As a child, he was confronted with racist insults because of the color of his skin. Other young wrestlers made life difficult for little Sinisha, but he gritted his teeth. "It wasn't easy," he remembers.
He took the hostility as a motivational crumb: "It made me sad, but it also motivated me. I wanted to prove to everyone that I could swing just as well, if not better. That gave me wings. I was the underdog. But I learned that even as an outsider you can go all out."
"My mother was mom and dad at the same time"
The strong person at his side: mom Petra. "She taught me to never give up and to believe in myself." Lüscher spent most of his childhood without a father. When he was four years old, his dad went back to his home country of Ghana. After initial phone calls, contact later broke off. "I had no father figure. My mother was mom and dad at the same time and managed everything."
In the meantime, a father figure has come into Lüscher's life: in the form of his coach Jürg "Jürgli" Monhart. "I have a very close relationship with him. We're in daily contact and he supports me on and off the pitch, just as he did during my KV apprenticeship, for example with school-related issues. I'm very grateful for him."
Brother Noah as a driving force: "I wanted to be better than him"
He also speaks very highly of his mom: "She is the most important person in my life. I love her." She has raised two boys with Sinisha and brother Noah. Both reached for the stars in sport. Sinisha in the sawdust, Noah, four and a half years older, on the football pitch. "Our mom made us dream. She made everything possible for us. On Saturday she was at my brother's football match, on Sunday she was with me at the wrestling festival."
Sinisha was spurred on by the fact that his brother was betting his cards on a career in football. "My brother always pushed ahead, I followed. My goal was always to be better and that gave me strength."
His brother Noah made the leap to the pros in the meantime and made his debut in the Challenge League for FC Aarau as a 16-year-old in 2018. However, he did not make the breakthrough. His younger brother Sinisha, on the other hand, has arrived in the circle of the top swingers.
The big goal in sight
However, he is not resting on his laurels. His success at the ESAF in Mollis is just an intermediate step for him. He dreams big: "I've built my whole life around wrestling. I want to get to the top."
Lüscher has already made his first big mark this season. At the start of the wreath festival season, the Aargau native was in a different league at the Solothurn cantonal tournament, marching into the final round with five victories and claiming his second wreath festival victory by defeating Nick Alpiger.
