Loisa Schaller

Happy birthday to Switzerland’s Loisa Schaller, who has spent this season adding events without giving up any speed.

Loisa’s headline result is a Swiss Championship medal. At the Swiss Indoor Championships at Magglingen in March, she took the bronze over 60m in 7.70, and her own caption said everything a caption should: very happy to win the bronze medal over 60m with a time of 7.70. That is the mark that still sits as her lifetime best over the distance.

Since then she has widened out considerably. In May she won the long jump at the Zuger Frühjahrsmeeting with 5.46m, on her own home track in Zug, and took second over 60m at the same meeting. In June she won the U20 long jump at the Innerschweiz event in Lucerne with 5.40m. In late June she went to the Swiss U20 Combined Events Championships at Teufen and contested a full heptathlon, winning her group in the 200m in 25.57. And on 25 July she ran 12.16 over 100m, the quickest legal time of her career.

That progression is worth pausing on. Loisa came up as a pure sprinter on the Canton Zug lists, working through 60m, 100m, 200m and 300m season by season, and in a single year she has added the long jump, the hurdles, the high jump, the shot and the javelin to it. Sprinters who take on the heptathlon usually give up something at the short end while they learn the rest. She has run her fastest 100m in the same summer.

She races for LK Zug, having come through Hochwacht Zug, and posts about all of it in English.

There is one more thing. Her Instagram bio reads track and field, and then a number, and the number is her age. Today it needs editing.

Alles Gueti zum Geburi, Loisa! Gsundheit, Glück und no viel schnelli Meter im neue Läbensjahr. 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇨🇭