Engraving in the nick of time
When the stars at Weltklasse Zürich lift their trophies in the air – that’s when the work starts in earnest for Beyer.
Audrey Werro flies over the tartan track, swiftly pulls ahead, is overtaken near the end by British athlete Georgia Hunter Bell, manages to fend off the attack by a hair’s breadth, crosses the finish line, breaking the Swiss national record as the ecstatic crowd cheers, and soon lifts the prestigious Diamond Trophy into the night sky – as the first Swiss female athlete ever to do so.
At the same time, Damian Ahcin sits in the workshop of the Beyer Atelier and clamps a silver-plated, brushed and varnished brass plate onto the slide of the engraving machine. He has already prepared the Diamond League logo und the event. All that’s missing is the name. Ahcin types it in and checks it against two different sources to make sure it’s spelled correctly. He has to wait a bit until the judges officially confirm Audrey Werro’s victory, then he presses the green button on the joystick. The machine positions the head with the sharp carbide graver over the plate, starts to hum, and cuts into the material, causing tiny shavings to fly.
As if Audrey Werro were saying: “But my name isn’t on the trophy!”
At Beyer, everything is ready for the grand finale.
A SYMBOLIC TROPHY
Beyer has manufactured the 4.9 kg trophies for the Diamond League since 2010: They are dominated by an eye-catching oversized glass diamond. Its cut with 57 facets corresponds to that of a real diamond and represents the singularity of the athletes who have achieved perfection and outshine everything in their success. The brick-red rubber handle is made of the same material as the Conica track in Letzigrund Stadium; the shape is that of the “Zurich Oval” in miniature, true to scale. Lastly, the black granite base appears to harness the athletes’ unbridled power: it represents the hard, rocky road to success.
The 32 plaques for the trophies, which are awarded to both men in women in 16 events, are produced in quiet rooms at Beyer as the track and field meeting is underway. It’s a small race against time because the plaques with the winners’ names need to be affixed to the bases of the trophies as quickly as possible – the deadline is 11:30 pm, the clock is ticking.
Damian Ahcin runs the cutter head over the plaque a second time to ensure that everything is perfectly smooth. To prevent the engraving from oxidising and to ensure that the name remains legible far into the future, Ahcin dabs black nitro lacquer into the grooves with a rubber blade. At the latest for this step he wears protective rubber finger cots on his thumbs, pointer fingers and middle fingers because the lacquer dries very quickly and is hard to remove from the skin. “The biggest disaster would be if I made a sudden movement and knocked over the pot with the lacquer in it,” laughs Ahcin. Best be careful! Ahcin uses a paper towel dipped in methylated spirits to wipe away any lacquer smeared on the plaque. Upon request from the photographer, he rewinds the broadcast back to the point at which Audrey Werro smiles delightedly towards the camera and points at the trophy. And he holds up the finished plaque. Click. Soon this plaque will be affixed to Werro’s trophy. But first, Ahcin has to engrave the names of the other winners on their plaques.
A LATE-NIGHT MISSION
10 pm: While the stars at Letzigrund Stadium step back into the spotlight to be celebrated by the crowd, Ahcin polishes the final plaque, places it – carefully wrapped – in a box with the other 31, tucks the box under his arm, switches off the light, and rushes out to the parking lot. In the company car, he drives through Zurich at night, against the stream of spectators leaving Letzigrund and heading back into the city, towards the Hotel Renaissance, where the athletes will be arriving for a celebratory dinner and where a swarm of supports, fans and guests have assembled. It is 10:15 pm and we’ve achieved our first goal: we arrive before the trophies, which are being picked up from the stadium by volunteers.
The final round starts out sober and unglamorous: Damian Ahcin positions the 32 trophies, which have now been brought into a meeting room on a trolley, so that the Beyer logo in the centre of each is facing forward. He attaches the plaques to the trophy bases with a stabiliser, closes each blue-velvet-lined box, and hands it to a volunteer, who then places it in a second box and secures it with a carrying strap. Additional volunteers then take the boxes from her and set off to find the winners, which isn’t easy because not all of them have arrived for dinner. Unfortunately, we cannot join them because we don’t have the necessary permission.
It’s 11:21 pm, and there’s just one trophy left – the one destined for Audrey Werro, the phenomenal Swiss winner of the women’s 800-metre event. Damian Ahcin polishes the trophy and plaque with extra care and, before we close the box, we pause to include an invisible, but that much more heartfelt congratulations. A world-class achievement!
From Bahnhofstrasse to the Hotel Renaissance: it takes a while for the final trophies to reach the winners.
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