New York-born Hélène de Pourtalès (1868-1945) of Geneva won gold at the 1900 Olympic Games. Largely unknown today, this pioneering yachtswoman paved the way for other women to compete at the Olympics.

Seeing and being seen is an important social aspect of sport. At one time, this was a particularly notable feature of tennis.

We mentally associate schwingen, traditional Swiss wrestling, with brawny herdsmen fighting a clean fight in idyllic mountain surroundings. But it’s not as straightforward as that. Urban dwellers played a bigger role in popularising the sport than one might think.

How a traditional game from Scotland became a glamour sport in Switzerland, and then went back to being a traditional game ‘of the people’: A brief history of curling in Switzerland

There have been children’s ski camps in Switzerland since 1940. The origins of these camps go back to World War II, and there were serious reasons for them: the camps were intended to prepare young people for a winter campaign.

Bobsleighing started out as an activity to keep well-to-do foreign tourists entertained. It wasn’t until much later that the sport became popular among the Swiss as well.

For years, Switzerland has celebrated itself as a nation of skiers. Where does this self-image come from? Is it more of a myth, or more of a reality?

In the 1980s the footballer was a fighter; a decade later, he was a sporty pop star, and now he’s a model. Nowhere is the change in the image of masculinity more apparent than on the football pitch.