Marcel Fässler was an employee at Swiss Post, Switzerland’s national postal service, when he was selected to join the reserve squad for the nation’s bobsledding team. Despite never having won a national or international medal, he was selected to stand in for Rolf Strittmatter in the four-man event at the 1988 Winter Olympics. There, alongside Ekkehard Fasser, Kurt Meier, and Werner Stocker, he helped pull off a surprising victory, taking advantage of a disastrous third run from defending Olympic champion Wolfgang Hoppe’s East German team and winning by a margin of 0.07 seconds. Fässler never factored into a major national or international tournament again and returned to his non-sporting life after the Games.
Switzerland