{"id":1717,"date":"2018-12-27T15:47:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T15:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/2018\/12\/27\/funeral-service-for-res-brugger-takes-place-on-25-january\/"},"modified":"2018-12-27T15:47:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T15:47:00","slug":"funeral-service-for-res-brugger-takes-place-on-25-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/funeral-service-for-res-brugger-takes-place-on-25-january\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral service for Res Br\u00fcgger takes place on 25 January"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Andreas \u00abRes\u00bb Br\u00fcgger turned the international athletics meeting at Zurich\u2019s Letzigrund Stadium into one of the world\u2019s best one-day events. Born in Meiringen (Bernese Oberland), the former top executive and 1955 national shot put champion, had acted as a coach for the Zurich athletics club before assuming his role as leader of the athletics meeting. He played golf on a regular basis, even after his 90<sup>th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n<p> At the age of 25, his professional career \u2013 Andreas Br\u00fcgger was a Director with Schweizerische R\u00fcckversicherungs-Gesellschaft (Swiss Re) \u2013 brought him to Zurich. Athletics fascinated him both as an athlete and on an event level. When the first world records were set at Letzigrund Stadium (in the high hurdles by Martin Lauer in the 100m by Armin Hary) in the late fifties and early sixties, he was already working in the athletes\u2019 liaison office. And when the meeting\u2019s future hung in balance for the first time in the late sixties, it was the athletics club LCZ and its vice-chairman Andreas Br\u00fcgger who saved it by urging the Zurich City Council to approve a loan that would help extend the arena\u2019s track from six to eight lanes.<\/p>\n<p>In 1970, he was named chairman of the Zurich athletics club, and in 1973, he became head of the meeting organisation, a role he would maintain for 27 years. He managed to create a success story and one of the most prestigious sports events in the world. 19 new world records were set at Letzigrund Stadium over the course of the Br\u00fcgger era. However, he pursued both athletics and economic success: Starting out with a budget of 148,000 Swiss francs in 1973, he worked with 1.15 million Swiss francs in 1983, and when he stepped down as a Meeting Director in 2000, the meeting\u2019s budget had grown to 5.8 million Swiss francs. About 12 million Swiss francs in benefit from the meeting went to the Zurich athletics club by the time he retired from his role as a chairman of the supporting association VfG LCZ in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>In 1983, Res Br\u00fcgger established the \u00abVerein f\u00fcr Grossveranstaltungen (VfG)\u00bb as supporting association for the meeting, and he did so despite strong resistance within the organisation. However, VfG helped the meeting team become more focused, professional, and flexible \u2013 characteristics that were required for aspects, such as sponsoring, TV rights, and international networks. Just as the meeting itself, the receptions for the sport\u2019s stars he and his wife Doris held on their terrace high above Lake Zurich became legendary.<\/p>\n<p> Res Br\u00fcgger received countless awards. In addition to being named Honorary President and Honarary Member of LCZ and Swiss Athletics, he was awarded a medal for merit and a sports award by the City of Zurich, medals by athletics associations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as an award for special merits on behalf of sports in Switzerland. Most recently, Sebastian Coe, President of the international athletics federation IAAF, awarded him with the \u201cIAAF President\u2019s Award\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Weltklasse Z\u00fcrich and the VfG\/LCZ offer their deepest sympathy to his wife Doris and the whole family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Athletics legend and Weltklasse Z\u00fcrich guiding figure Andreas Br\u00fcgger has died aged 91...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zurich"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurich.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}