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Switzerland name Doha 2015 team
Defending world champion Marcel Hug leads the field. 20 Oct 2015
Marcel Hug showed an impressive performance winning the men's 5000m T54 race at Swansea 2014 IPC Athletics European Championships
“We arrived earlier than usual, so the acclimatisation has been successful."
Switzerland have announced eight athletes who will comprise their team for the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships, which begin Wednesday (21 October) and until 31 October in Doha, Qatar.
Marcel Hug is the undisputed leader on the Swiss team, and will be defending four of his five titles in Doha after losing his marathon crown at the World Championships earlier in the year.
Hug, also known as the Swiss “Silver Bullet” returns from the 2013 World Championships in Lyon, France, where he also won gold medals in the 10,000m; 5,000m; 1,500m; 400m T54 and a silver in the 800m.
Joining Hug is Philip Handler, who will compete in the 100m and 200m T13. Beat Bosch and Bojan Mitic are also firmly in the mix in their disciplines. Bosh won the 100m T52 European title and took silver in the 400m. Mitic won silver medals in the 100m and 400m T34 and bronze in the 200m.
Rounding off the team is Alexandra Helbling and Patricia Keller, both in the T54 class, along with 20-year-old Catherine Debrunner and Bieler Markus Sutter in the T53.
Head of Delegation Roger Getzmann commented: "Our most potential for a gold-medal finish lies with our world-class athlete Marcel Hug. Beat Bosch and Bojan Mitic have an outside chance, and for the others they are competing with a view to Rio 2016, to confirm their performance and to gain valuable experience at a major event. If any one of them place in the finals, that's a success.”
“We arrived earlier than usual, so the acclimatisation has been successful. Our athletes are wearing cooling vests before and after the competitions in order to retain performance and concentration and to improve their recovery."
Seventy hours of live action from the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships will be shown at IPC Athletics' website. Around 1,400 athletes from 100 countries will be in Doha to contest 214 medal events in the final major international event ahead of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
