Gerhard Meister

Two heroes of the world of sports who couldn’t be more different; two lives spent on the bike seat could not have been more different. Two heroes of cycling who divided Switzerland into two camps in the 1950s. On the one side, there was the ascetic Ferdinand Kübler, who came from the most humble of circumstances, and who pedaled with an iron self-discipline to the top of the cycling world. After his departure from racing, he built up a solid bourgeois existence. But he was also one of the first cyclists to be accused of doping.

On the other side, there was the bon vivant Hugo Koblet, the "pédaleur de charme", who rarely pedaled over the finish line ungroomed, who loved fast cars and beautiful women and had to end his career tragically—after, against his will, amphetamines where injected into him and his heart was damaged.

In his play, the Swiss author Gerhard Meister presents the biographies of two exceptional sportsmen. The duel between asceticism and sensual delight opens up into a furious final spurt against the backdrop of the fascinating world of cycling. In this Requiem, he tells of a time when the prize money was still low, doping had just begun, and the riders were largely on their own. (Stadttheater Bern)