La Nuit du Sport Genevois

By Milou Hoeft, Year 12

The “nuit du sport genevois”, which translates to the night of sport, is an event that aims to honour and reward Geneva athletes that managed to reach either the national or international podium in the past year. It is organised by the “Office Cantonale de la Culture et du Sport” and the “Service des Sports”. It took place on the 8th of December 2022 in the municipal hall Palladium.

All the athletes that attended the event, having reached this level of achievement in their sport, received a certificate. However, eight prizes were awarded in different categories including female and male team of the year, greatest young talent and a special prize selected by the jury. For each of these categories, three teams or athletes were nominated and presented at the ceremony through a series of video montages. The winner for each category was then revealed by various different officials that are part of the sports community.

I attended this event because my basketball team won the Patrick Baumann Swiss Cup in April. Personally, I found it to be a very eye opening experience. I was not aware of the large number of top level athletes that there are in Geneva. In 2022, a total of more than 530 individual athletes and teams were recognised as Swiss champions (all age categories). I feel that oftentimes sport teams and athletes do not get enough recognition. For example, before the award ceremony I had never heard about Jessica Duc (nominated for the female youth talent of the year prize), who became junior world champion in the extreme canoe-kayak slalom at only fifteen years old. Additionally, Tadesse Abraham won the award for male athlete of the year, being the second Swiss athlete to ever run a half marathon in under an hour (52 minutes and 50 seconds) and holding the record time for a marathon run by a Swiss athlete, being 2 hours 6 minutes and 38 seconds. I found it interesting to see the support toward all athletes, including disabled competitors, for which there was also an award.

It should be noted that the jury that selected the winners was composed of equal numbers of men and women. Through the course of the ceremony it was often reflected upon the differences in female and male opportunities in sports and how this can also be seen in the results of the past year. The development of female sport was put into light and strongly encouraged.

If you are interested in sports and want to discover more about the variety of sports and levels of achievement in Geneva, I would definitely recommend you to keep an eye open for the nuit du sport genevois in 2023!