| Sports: | Triathlon |
| Career: | Olympic Gold 2012 |
| Olympic Silver 2016 | |
| 5 times European champion (09/10/12/14/15) |
Starting position
If an elite athlete is no longer able to participate in sport due to injury and out of the media spotlight, this can affect the image that is portrayed by the media and consequently influence how the athlete is publicly perceived. Ultimately, having a negative knock-on effect on the athletes, their partners and the athlete’s management. The challenge here is to turn this crisis into positive advertising.
Challenge
Five and a half months before her appearance at the Rio Olympic games in 2016, Nicola Spirig suffered multiple fractures to the back of her left hand after crashing in the first race of the season. The Olympic champion’s hand was strengthened with three plates and 23 screws. The severe bruising to the right shoulder was even more painful than the hand. The dream of a fourth Olympic Games was about to disappear. samm’s task: to remove any doubts or fears about the rumours that Nicola would not take part in the Olympics. Instead demonstrate a combative, fit and optimistic athlete making rapid progress in her training.
The samm Approach
How can you get the television images of Nicola’s terrible crash out of people’s minds? By setting up a Q&A with Swiss TV. Two hours after the complex hand operation, the «superwoman» is already sitting in the rehabilitation centre of the hospita, converted into a TV studio. Despite the anaesthetics, Nicola presented herself to the TV audience as the Nicola the viewers know – clear, focussed and strong. In the weeks following the incident, Nicola showed a desire to compete – took part in up to three fitness tests in seven days and allowed the public to share her battle back to the world’s elite via print, online and social media. Swiss TV supported her throughout her journey.
Due to the injury, Nicola was not able to compete in a single race before the Olympic Games, not even the European Championships.
But instead of complaining about her unfortunate luck with the injury, the “superwoman” demonstrated strength and desire to compete via the national and international media. Her messages were: no-one swims eight-kilometer training like me. No-one does such hard bike training sessions as I do. And no-one takes part in half-ironman races excepted me.
In a 50-minute documentary, Swiss Television portrayed the story of a woman who gets up after her crash, fights for her comeback and wins silver in Rio. A story that started as a negative report turned into an optimistic, combative story and ends with the most successful triathlete in history.
samm group was the management of Nicola Spirig until summer 2018.