Ralph Pfäffli, the tireless “ski cross dad”

Ralph Pfäffli is considered the master builder of the success among Swiss Ski cross. Now the 54-year-old leaves his position as head coach to Enrico Vetsch, but will stay with Swiss-Ski in a new role.

What kind of stirring days are these, what wonderful, nerve -wracking moments! There is this back and forth around the bronze Olympic medal for Fanny Smith, a few hours later, this total triumph with gold for Ryan Regrez and silver for Alex Fiva.

The headcoach of the Swiss Skicross team takes all of these stories quite emotionally. Ralph Pfäffli is a veteran, he has been part of the ski cross circuit for many years, but what he experienced in Beijing is difficult to describe with words. And then he finds the one and only expression for it: “Incredible.” Before he continues: «You can only dream of that. Absolutely crazy! “

The man from Bern is the man who does his work away from cameras and microphones. And for whom one thing has always been of central importance: teamwork. “Of course, there is a competition during the race,” he says, “but individual progress can be achieved most efficiently when we work as a unit in training.” That is why the term “boss” was never important to him. Pfäffli the team player always liked and always likes it uncomplicated and unconventional.

In Africa for the Red Cross

The 54-year-old Bernese from Kehrsatz was already a passionate skier at a young age, and also did snowboarding and gave lessons in Gstaad as a ski instructor. But his life did not primarily consist of sport. Pfäffli, who once completed an apprenticeship as a truck mechanic and then became an automotive engineer in Biel, worked for the Red Cross in the nineties in various countries in Africa.

Pfäffli, once project manager of a trade fair company, is an adventurer, he later became a leading timekeeper in the Snowboard World Cup and in athletics and always remained a passionate skier. At the turn of the millennium, he found his way to ski cross, and it didn’t take long for him to participate in the World Cup for the first time. However, his career as an active athlete ended already after one season, but soon after he already devoted himself to a project that he calls “my baby” today. It was in October 2003 when he received the offer from Swiss-Ski to take over the Ski cross team as head coach.

He agreed to take the job, because he saw the chance, not the risk. Around 23,000 francs were budgeted for him each year, including wages and car expenses. He couldn’t live off of it, but this project fascinated him so much that he couldn’t let go of it anymore.

Money was never his drive

Pfäffli is a coach and much more, as he is also supervisor, listener, organizer, filmmaker, he is looking for training places – and to make it financially, during the summer he works at construction sites or at events of the trade fair company. “Money was never a drive for me,” he says, “if I was convinced of something when I saw a deep meaning behind it, I did it with all the energy available.”

For him, ski cross is “just a cool sport”, and his advantage is that he can – almost as a man from the very beginning – work as he thinks it is right.
Although Pfäffli was trained to be a coach, he taught himself a lot over the course of the years. He also has a fine feeling for the situation and people. In addition to his social skills, he has the ability to think logically, to act quickly in delicate situations and to improvise. When there is a lack of manpower, he helps out, because he has the necessary manual skills. And because he is also versed linguistically , he skips many communicative barriers.

He likes the winters in which he is usually not accomodated in hotels with the athletes, but in apartments. But even as a “ski-cross dad”, he feels comfortable around all the youngsters and when it comes to living together, he always remembers values ​​that his parents have given him: tolerance and respect.

Pfäffli takes on a new role

Ski cross has been Pfäffli’s world for two decades now. And it will remain like that, but in a new role. Enrico Vetsch, with whom Pfäffli had been working closely for some time now, will take over the role as new head coach. And he, Ralph Pfäffli, will become the new person responsible in the ski cross, snowboard cross and Snowboard Alpine department at Swiss-Ski, the so-called sports cluster “Speed”. In the field of freestyle, freeski and snowboard freestyle (sports cluster “Style”), the new boss is called Christoph Perreten.

Pfäffli moved his residence to the Allgäu, to his wife’s home; the two are parents of two-year-old Felix. Germany by no means is foreign to Pfäffli. His mother is German, so he also has the German passport in addition to the Swiss one.

Ralph Pfäffli has a lot of plans and ideas; he is hungry for action and is driven by ambition to continuously improve things. According to him, self-criticism is the magic word, question yourself instead of leaning back, that is his motto.

Only once a while he treats himself to a break. He spends a whole month in Sweden with his family after the season to devote himself to his wife and son to recover – and to recharge the batteries to be able to tackle his new tasks with the same enthusiasm as before.

Courtesy of Swiss-Ski