Walter Wenger

Walter Wenger grew up in Unterlangenegg, near Steffisburg, in a family with nine siblings. Wenger’s father died when he was 10 years old, and he apprenticed as a roofer where he worked in Oberburg for a short time before finding another job in Thun where he worked for over 35 years. An active member of the Thun gymnastics club, Wenger competed at wrestling competitions for three decades, from the 1930s to 1950s. In 1947, Wenger won a national title in bantamweight freestyle wrestling, defeating 1936 Olympian Cesar Gaudard of Châtel-Saint-Denis. He was selected in the following year to compete for his country at the Olympic Games in London where he was eliminated in the second round of the bantamweight freestyle wrestling competition.

Wenger won his last national title in 1951 at the age of 40, and retired from competition in 1953. Later becoming a wrestling trainer and judge, he later was a founding member of the Bernese Oberland National Gymnastics Association as head of wrestling and a member of the technical committee. He resided in Steffisburg for most of his life, where he died in 1990 at the age of 78.