Voters feel Ammann effect

Ammann's Olympic heroics seem to have influenced the voters of Einsiedeln Keystone Archive

With key votes in favour of a national ski jumping centre and a SFr 4 million contribution to the St Moritz skiing world championships, it wasn't only supporters of UN membership who were celebrating at the weekend.

Asked if they would contribute SFr 600,000 towards the proposed new ski jumping centre, the residents of Einsiedeln in canton Schwyz certainly seemed to have felt ‘the Ammann effect’.

Less than three weeks after Swiss ski jumper Simon Ammann’s historic double gold medal win at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the Einsiedeln voters came out almost 60 per cent in favour of the new centre.

Last year the same voters rejected a similar proposal.

Four jumps

Einsiedeln is now set to become the headquarters of a national centre comprising four jumps of 25, 45, 70 and 100 metres. The matted jumps, which can be used all year round, will be used mainly for training although some competitions are also planned.

The national government, sporting associations and sponsors are covering almost half of the total SFr 8.1 million building costs. Further contributions from the cantonal government and from lottery funds were made conditional on Sunday’s vote being successful.

Relief in St Moritz

Organisers of next year’s alpine skiing world championships in St Moritz were also able to breathe a sigh of relief after the population of canton Graubünden agreed to fund the event to the tune of SFr 4 million.

More than 57 per cent of the voters backed the proposal.

Just as in Einsiedeln, the St Moritz vote was a second attempt to win popular support.

In September 2000, the people of Graubünden surprisingly voted against a request for SFr 7 million in funding, turning the proposal down by barely 800 votes.

swissinfo with agencies