Image Credit: World Rowing
How do you define greatness? A mind-bending feat that surpasses expectation and rationality? A moment of authentic surprise that inverts the weight of pressing odds? Or perhaps an incision in the linear unfurling of your heart?
In sport, we are quick to anoint greatness upon each other. A performance that impresses us is often bestowed the virtue of greatness before it can even truly be understood. It is easy to attach brilliance onto bravery and boldness but sometimes the two should not be conflated. True greatness should combine mastery, magnanimity and more than a hint of magic.
The Olympic Games is our ultimate magic show. A procession of truly elite talent, operating at the pinnacle of their sport and thrust forward into a limelight fostered by four years of relative translucency. These two weeks are stitched into the very fabric of competition, dating back to the lore of Ancient Greece, and have transcended the politics of modern society to become the ultimate marker in sporting excellence. To win Olympic Gold gives you immortality of a rare and timeless specification – your story will be perpetuated forevermore, carried forward by the whispers of generations to come, who too aim to climb those sacred steps and join this club of champions. Emerging over the horizon, this time in the blue and red hue of palatial Paris, we are ready for the very fastest in rowing to be crowned.
Step forward, my friends – The Olympic Games have come.
The Stats
Country
Switzerland
Crew Names
Roman Roeoesli (B)
Andrin Gulich (S)
Average Age
26 years
Olympic Record
Ninth in the M4- at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games (Gulich)
Seventh in the M2x at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games (Roeoesli)
2024 Competitive Record
World Rowing Cup 1: 2nd (M2-)
World Rowing Cup 2: 3rd (M2-)
World Rowing Cup 3: 1st (M2-)
European Championships: 3rd (M2-)
The Profile
The Swiss are the reigning world champions and have been going head to head with Wynne-Griffith and George for the last couple of seasons, and not just in the men’s pair. Roeoesli was a member of the Oxford Boat Race crew when Wynne-Griffith and George raced for Cambridge. Gulich, like Wynne-Griffith, is also a former Yale Bulldog. Gulich made his senior debut in 2021 as part of the coxless four that ended the season with ninth at the Tokyo Olympics. He continued in the four for the 2022 season, placing fifth at both the Europeans and the world championships (Switzerland’s best result in the men’s coxless four at the world championships since 1982). Röösli made his debut in 2013 and was a member of the outstanding Swiss BM4X that won the U23 world championships that year and defended the title in 2014. This quad went on to race at the Rio Olympics, winning the B-Final. Post Rio, he formed a doubles partnership with Barnabe Delarze, winning world championship silver in 2018 (another best-ever performance for Switzerland). They went on to race in Tokyo, reaching the A-Final. Roeoesli and Gulich formed their pairs partnership in 2023 and produced an outstanding season, winning both the European and world title. This season, they lost to the British at the opening 2024 World Rowing Cup and were beaten by them again at the Europeans and the second 2024 World Rowing Cup. They closed the 2024 World Rowing Cup season with a strong victory ahead of Croatia and New Zealand.
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