Nils Widmer

Nils Widmer

Nils Widmer is a historian and a research associate at Swiss Sports History, and is doing his doctorate at the University of Lucerne.

A woman at the very top of Swiss skiing

Nils Widmer 13.11.2025 Elsa Roth from Bern was a ski racer, ski instructor and winter sports official. She co-founded the Swiss women’s ski club and helped run the Swiss national skiing association for almost 35 years from 1939. Today, very few people have heard of Roth.
Elsa Roth in her role as secretary general of the Swiss Ski Association in Bern, 19 June 1965.

Swiss timekeepers at the Olympic Games

Nils Widmer 16.05.2023 Timekeeping is hugely important in modern sport, which is increasingly competitive, professional and international. It has made remarkable progress since its early days. A look at the history of timekeeping at the Olympic Games, and the role of the Swiss watch industry and diplomacy.
Start of the men’s 200m race in London, 2012, with the Omega time display in the background.

Switzerland's first women's ski champion

Nils Widmer 07.02.2023 Rösli Streiff won both the slalom and combined titles at the second Alpine World Ski Championships in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1932. A look back at the life of the trailblazing skier from Glarus and the early days of women’s downhill skiing.
Blowing the competition out of the water: Rösli Streiff won the slalom and combined titles at the World Ski Championships in Italy in 1932.

Mud-wrestling on wheels

Nils Widmer 15.09.2022 A scramble through the history of cyclo-cross. A sport that produced Swiss stars in the 1970s and 1980s, then sank almost completely into oblivion and is now experiencing a modest revival.
Cyclo-cross is a pretty muddy affair at times.