After 125 international matches, 101 goals, six Adults’ World Floorball Championships and one U19 WFC, five bronze and one silver medal, the Swiss national team forward Michelle Wiki has decided to end her playing career.
According to the press release from Swiss Floorball Association, Wiki has been thinking hard about retiring for the last five months. She kept herself fit during the summer break so she would have been ready if she had decided to continue playing. Various pieces of the puzzle have led to Wiki’s decision to retire from floorball. One reason was the double burden of job and sport:
— I demand of myself that I put a lot of energy into the sport and want to perform as well as I always have during my career. I realised that I have to admit to myself that the energy for both is not quite there as it was in the last few years and I don’t want to do things halfway, says Wiki.
In 2006 Wiki represented Switzerland at the U19 World Floorball Championships in Naunhof and Leipzig, Germany. From that event she also earned her first WFC medal when Switzerland took home the third place. In 2007, the then barely 17-year-old joined the NLA team UHC Dietlikon from FB Riders. She experienced an unforgettable moment a year later when they won the Champions Cup and were victorious against two Swedish teams, among others. The 32-year-old played twelve seasons for UHC Dietlikon and Kloten-Dietlikon Jets, respectively, and made a detour to Sweden every now and then: in 2013/14 to Uppsala, in 2016/2017 to KAIS Mora and in her last season in 2021/22 to IK Sirius and thus back to Uppsala. With her goals and assists, she helped her teams to numerous victories, became the league’s top scorer three times and celebrated five championship and five Cup titles with the Zurich team. She was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2015/16 and in her last season with the Jets in 2020/21. She said her most memorable moments were the 2019 Swiss championship and Swiss Cup titles, when they won after a come-from-behind performance.
Unforgettable winning goal at the home WFC 2019
Wiki was also an important goal scorer for the Swiss national team. In total, she scored 151 points (101 goals, 50 assists) in 125 international matches. The goals in the semi-final of the 2019 World Floorball Championships on home soil were particularly important. Wiki was a key player in what we all remember as the miracle of Neuchâtel, the comeback in the semi-final against Czech Republic. Wiki scored the equaliser and the winning goal in extra time. But it was not just this game that was unique, she said, but the whole week in Neuchâtel.
— The team dynamics were extraordinary. I played with almost two thirds of the players in the national team for ten years. You could tell that we understood each other blindly – on and off the field. It was all the more wonderful to be able to play in such a tournament with such a team, Wiki comments.
In addition to the 2019 WFC silver medal, she won bronze four times at Adults’ WFC. Only at her first World Championships in 2011 did Wiki return empty-handed with Switzerland. The WFC 2021 in Uppsala remains as the last one for Wiki as a player.
Now the lawyer will put her energy into work and her private life for the first time:
— I first have to find out what everyday life will be like without sport. Where do you get the joy? What do you do after work?
Wiki can also imagine being active in floorball in some capacity. She is already on the Steering Committee for the Men’s WFC 2022, but also wants to take her time and take everything step by step.
