Sanjeev Bhuttan, co-found of Spordy
A new website has been launched in Switzerland, with the aim of bringing sports enthusiasts together in a single, dedicated online community.
Called Spordy, the new online platform offers a range of services focusing on health and fitness for amateur sports enthusiasts, professional trainers and sports coaches, as well as sports clubs in Switzerland. These include:
- Find a buddy: A great way to connect with people to practice sport or for general fitness purposes.
- Find a trainer (coming soon): A quick way to find fitness trainers or sports coaches based on a user's location and purpose.
- Find a club: A handy tool for researching information about local sports and fitness clubs in Switzerland.
- Groups: A useful service, enabling members to join or create any sporting group of their interest. Within the groups, members can post group activities, have discussions, and post photos.
- Events: Lots of information on sporting events where people can see at a glance which events are happening in Switzerland.
- Members' blog: A helpful platform where members can discuss anything and everything to do with health, fitness and sports. From nutritional tips to the best skiing resorts in Europe, Spordy actively encourages members to engage in such discussions.
Spordy helps you to connect with other sporting enthusiasts
Officially launched at the beginning of 2015, Spordy was set up by two work colleagues, Sanjeev Bhuttan and Igor Windisch. Asked what inspired them to create Spordy, Sanjeev told knowitall.ch,
“The idea of Spordy came to us after playing tennis together on a beautiful warm day in August. I wanted to play the next day but Igor couldn’t make it and I didn’t know any other tennis players in my network . Being physically active, fond of outdoors, and wanting to play sport in general, we often found ourselves unable to pursue these interests because our tennis partner was unavailable, or because we didn't want to go on a long cycling trip alone, or a sudden/impromptu visit to the ski-resort by ourselves.”
Sanjeev Bhuttan with Personal Trainer, Eduard Ahmeti, one of the first new members of Spordy
Igor continued, "So we took upon ourselves the task of creating a dedicated sports and fitness platform to meet the need to play sport whenever we wanted, and with the right partner. The project started at the beginning of September 2014, with countless hours of brainstorming on the design and development, and finally we launched Spordy on the 2nd January, 2015. We still have a long way to go for further development but we believe we have built the foundations of a good product and have received a lot of positive response.”
Although there are many generic networking websites and organizations throughout Swizerland, some of which have special interest groups for sports, there is currently no dedicated medium in Switzerland to enable people to connect for sporting and fitness purposes. To ensure the site is fully integrated within the entire Swiss community, the website will soon be available in French and German, as well as English. The developers are also working on a phone application for both IOS and Android platforms.
Sanjeev concluded, “Spordy isn’t just for advanced sports enthusiasts. Indeed anyone over the age of 18, who is motivated to become physically active, either through sport or other activities like yoga and dog walking, can join Spordy. Currently, most of our members are aged between mid 20’s and 40, but we also have members who are in their 50’s. Spordy is particularly attractive to expats who are newly arrived in Switzerland, but don’t necessarily have the time to establish their own personal network of friends in order to purse their own sporting/fitness interests.”
Spordy makes it easy for you to look up details of local sports clubs
“Being a fat kid, I took upon the lone struggle of changing my lifestyle to a healthy regime in my late teens, which still is ongoing. Being fit and healthy is not static, it’s a continuous process of pushing the limits of your body and mind. However, one of the main hurdles I experienced in my training was motivation - and external motivation, with others pushing you, helps enormously. This is one of the philosophies of Spordy, to motivate each other. Finding the right training buddy, pushing and motivating each other, to help you achieve your fitness goals and keep aiming for higher goals!”
The success of Spordy depends on it members – the more people who join, the greater the long term benefits to the wider sporting community of Switerland. So if you have any interest in keeping fit, be it simply taking the dog for a walk, or training for the next marathon, then give it a try. You may be surprised what opportunities exist within your local area, and you could make new friends for life!
Spordy
www.spordy.ch
