From Levada to «Loube» – a look back at the first winter sports season

It’s May 1, 2022 – Sunrise is now the official, proud new main partner of Swiss-Ski. Expectations are high on both sides of the partnership – and also for everyone involved. 10 years, 11 sports, one shared mission. New cross-sectoral project teams are created, the Sunrise sponsorship team is expanded from three to six people. Sunrise is ready.

The sporting season was still a good few months away in May, but the first project was already in full swing – and hardly anyone knew about it. It was the launch of the new racing attire for Swiss athletes. All the details of the racing suit were defined in painstaking detail over a period of several months. With a small project team consisting of representatives from Swiss-Ski, athletes, Sunrise, Descente, FROG (formerly Rufus Leonard) and other parties, the perhaps fastest racing suit in the world was being fine-tuned behind closed and locked doors, and the whole of Switzerland was eager to know – what will the new Swiss racing suit look like?

On July 5, 2022, the cat was finally let out of the bag: The Swiss-Ski athletes were set to start off the upcoming competition season in a new suit called «Levada». The new racing suit has been given a Rhaeto-Romanic name meaning «Sunrise» or «Rise again». The message «keep getting up» is perfectly in tune with our new Sunrise brand promise «Dream Big. Do Big.» – inspiring people to dream big and also do big things. It’s a motto and a name designed to give Swiss-Ski athletes an additional motivational boost when they put on their racing suit. MySports, together with a production team, recorded the entire «development journey» and present it in a video series.

October 21, 2022, marked the start of the sports season for Sunrise with the Big Air in Chur. For the first time ever, Sunrise was represented at an FIS World Cup as the official main sponsor. The new signpost? The Sunrise Cupola – a 12-meter high dome with a diameter of 18 meters that can accommodate up to 250 people. A 360° experience that takes visitors into an immersive world and explains the world cups and disciplines from completely new perspectives. The Swiss-Ski athletes themselves were the ones to do the explaining and presenting – spectators had never been that close to a race. The complete report on the start of the season in Chur can be found here.

Its appearance in Chur was not to be the Cupola’s last. As early as the beginning of January, it was in the limelight in Adelboden again for all to admire – with a revised program, new animations and a description of the route adapted to the «Chuenisbärgli», presented by former Adelboden winner Marc Berthod. Just like in Chur, people boogied the night away in the Cupola in Adelboden.

With over 12,000 visitors at the Sunrise Cupola in Chur and Adelboden, the kick-off was definitely a success. We’re already working on the program for next season to create an even better experience for spectators to join us on a wild trip once again!

Of course, all the great season World Cups wouldn’t have been possible without the project teams doing the work in background. One of these teams are the Sunrise network specialists, a core team of seven network specialists specifically put together for Swiss-Ski. In addition to being responsible for the entire ICT implementation for the World Cups, the team was also extremely committed and on-site during all the World Cup races. They ensured a smooth process and 100% network coverage during the events.

For the 2022/23 season, fiber-optic lines measuring 339 km in total were built for the Swiss-Ski events, which made it possible to provide the World Cup locations with the best Sunrise Internet. This means that the locations as well as locals and vacationers alike will benefit from improved Internet and mobile network coverage in the long term. The team did a great job and achieved a failure rate of 0% in all World Cups!

You can read about the work day for our network specialists at the Lauberhorn race here.

Sunrise customers had the opportunity to benefit from exclusive and unforgettable World Cup experiences throughout the entire season. Whether it was at the Skicross World Cup in Arosa, where exclusive overnight stays, a tour of the track and a meet & greet with Margaux Dumont and Marc Bischofberger were offered, or at the cross-country skiing World Cup in Davos, where Sunrise Moments guests had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ski the original race course and then meet former top athlete Laurien van der Graaf. Other highlights included the new stands in Adelboden, where Sunrise customers had the perfect view of Chuenisbärgli, or the Sunrise «Loube», an exclusive viewing platform at the Hundschopf. You can’t possibly get any closer to the action and the athletes.

But, of course, the incredible Swiss-Ski athletes were at the center of a great season. Starting with ski alpine, where Switzerland impressively regained its position as the best ski alpine nation at the end of the Alpine World Cup season. In the National Cup, Swiss-Ski leaped ahead of the second-ranked alpine team from Austria by 2,589 points. In total, Switzerland won an incredible seven medals at the Ski World Cup, 56 spots on the podium at the World Cups, including 24 victories and four crystal globes – three of them for the unleashed Marco Odermatt, who hit the historic 2,000-point mark, and a crystal ball for Lara Gut-Behrami.

The freestyle athletes won ten medals at the World Cup in Georgia and took home 14 World Cup victories during the season, and for the Nordic athletes there were a total of three World Cup victories and several other places on the podium. We congratulate all our Swiss-Ski athletes on an incredible season.

Finally, we would also like to thank all of you. To all Sunrise employees who contributed to the success of the first season. To all the helpers and volunteers for their great support. To the athletes for their commitment and collaboration. To Swiss-Ski for the fantastic teamwork during the first season and the confidence placed in us. We are already looking forward to the new season: LET’S GO, GO, GO!