animiert magazin nummer21 winter

Perfekte Trainingsbedingun- gen für die Freestyler Ende Mai 2017 auf dem Titlis. Davon profitiert die Schule. Denn je weniger Absenzen aufgrund auswärtiger Trainings, desto besser die schulische Leistung. The freestylers enjoyed per- fect training conditions on the Titlis until late May this year. That’s good for the school: the closer the facilities, the fewer the absences and the better the academic grades.

The ambitious young athletes at Sportmittels- chule Engelberg train hard to achieve their sporting successes. But in order to graduate they have to study their academic subjects with equal diligence. The school has produced many champions – which means we have lots of former pupils to keep our fingers crossed for at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. Spor tmit telschu le Engelberg has many big-name a lumni. Par ticu larly well known are A lpine ski racer and Olympic gold meda llist Dominique Gisin and her siblings Marc and

spor t and their schoolwork,” says Eskil Läubli, the Spor tmit telschu le’s managing direc tor. When the school opened in 1995, its focus was on A lpine skiing, but in recent years it has expanded to cover many more spor ts. “We primarily of fer training in A lpine skiing, f reeskiing, f reestyle snowboarding, cross-countr y skiing, and biath lon,” says Eskil. “We design our curricu lum to f it around the seasons in each of these spor ts. Students don’ t have it easy if their seasons are dif ferent to those of the spor ts named.” Such exceptions have included triath lete Fiona Stef fen, rower Seraf ina pupils. Ice-hockey player Tobias Geisser (of Nationa l League team EV Zug) a lso gained his Matura f rom the Spor tmit telschu le in 2017. That hockey club now has a learning par tner- ship with the school, a lthough that came too late for Tobias to benef it f rom. Now, four EV Zug players are following academic courses at Engelberg while training for their spor t in Zug. On its website, the Spor tmit telschu le regu larly posts success stories of current and former pupils. Some days, one post is swif tly followed by the nex t and the nex t. The school is a lso f requently named in newspaper and telev ision repor ts as the place where top Swiss ath letes got their education. “We are riding on a wave of success,” says Eskil. “But you reap what you sow – this is the f ruit of ex tremely hard work over many years.” The school has no need to adver tise for new pupils. “It ’s a ll v ia word of mouth,” says Ulrich Naumann, head of marketing and PR. “We a lways have more applicants Merloni (who graduated in 2017), and f igure skater Sa lome L imacher, and yet the Spor tmit telschu le is still the best solution for these

Michell of Engelberg, but the list goes on: ski racers Wendy Holdener and Denise Fei- erabend, f reestylers Fabian Bösch and Kai Mah ler, and bi- ath lete Lena Häcki. If you had looked for them at the school

One hundred and four pu- pils currently attend Sport- mittelschule Engelberg.

during the spor ting season, though, there’s a good chance you wou ldn’ t have ac tua lly have found them there – few classes are held at that time, and when the students are of f training elsewhere, lessons take place on line. Of course, that means that once the season comes to an end, more is expec ted academica lly of pupils. They have to rev ise hard even af ter a strenuous day on the slopes, and they have to achieve the same standard as pupils at “norma l ” schools in order to gain their Matura (university en- trance diploma) or EFZ (vocationa l cer tif icate). These young ath letes need plenty of persistence and a willingness to make sacrif ic- es, and they a lso need a plan B for when their spor ting career comes to an end. A lthough many students care more about spor ting successes than academic achievements, they know that school is impor tant. “It gives them ex tra discipline. You can see that they are here because they want to be, and that they are willing to put plenty of ef for t into both their

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