Ehammer’s 8.51 meters: how visualization became a record

June 1, 2026OMNI Hypnosis International

On Saturday, May 30, 2026, Simon Ehammer flew 8.51 meters in Götzis. A Swiss national record. A world record within a decathlon. No one had jumped farther this year, indoors or outdoors. And he did it in the middle of a decathlon, after the 100 meters, on tired legs, with three attempts instead of the usual six. His coach and mental trainer Adrian Brüngger stood at the edge of the runway and said into the camera: “There is a story behind this.” That story is a sports hypnosis story.

What really happened in Götzis on May 30

For decades, the Hypo Meeting in Götzis has been one of the most important combined events meets in the world. Win there, and you join the decathlon elite. Ehammer, 26, from Appenzell, was already in first place after the first four events, with 4,762 points. He won the long jump with a leap 6 centimeters farther than his previous Swiss record from 2022. That sounds like a small step. It is everything. Ehammer is now the 30th athlete in history to jump beyond 8.50 meters, and only the sixth European. The jump was worth 1,194 decathlon points, the highest score ever recorded for a single event within a decathlon.

The interesting part: from lucky feat to plan

In the on-field interview with Swiss broadcaster SRF, Ehammer said the sentence that is the real long jump for sports hypnosis: “Four years ago, my 8.45 came as a feat that overwhelms you. This time I could picture the 8.51. I had visualized a jump like this several times.” Read that sentence again. The day before the competition, Simon had a sports hypnosis session with Adrian on site in Götzis. In his last training session, Simon and his coach had marked 8.50 in the sand. Beating that mark was the goal. Over the past years, Simon has not only mastered visualization in hypnosis. He has also learned to enter, on purpose, the emotional state that makes his best performances possible in the first place. Six centimeters separate the 2022 mark from the 2026 one. But four years of mental work separate “a feat that overwhelms you” from “a jump I had visualized several times.” A lucky feat has turned into a predictable result. That is exactly what sports hypnosis at the elite level is. Not magic, but method. Reproducibility, not chance.

What Adrian Brüngger does with elite athletes

Adrian Brüngger, CEO of OMNI Hypnosis International and head coach of Pfadi Winterthur handball since 2007, also works with top Swiss wrestler Samuel Giger and has coached more than 500 athletes in recent years, including the Swiss national ice hockey team at the 2024 World Championship in Prague. As Ehammer has told Swiss media, the two hold a sports hypnosis session every six to eight weeks. Topics include visualizing technique, building self-confidence, sharpening focus, recovery, pain management, releasing negative associations tied to negative emotions, and anchoring positive emotions in their place. In spring 2021, Ehammer hit a wall in the pole vault. His coach sent him to Brüngger. One session later, the block was gone and Ehammer was back in competition mode. About the work, Ehammer told a Swiss newspaper: “It feels good and gives me mental relief.”

This mix of steady mental groundwork and targeted help in a crisis is what makes the difference at the top. Not one spectacular session before the big event, but quiet, continuous work over years. In Götzis, that work showed up as 8.51 meters.

What the science says about visualization

Mentally rehearsing a movement activates the same motor regions of the brain as actually performing it. Research from the University of Zurich (de Matos and colleagues, 2023, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; 2024, Scientific Reports) also shows that standardized hypnotic states produce measurable changes in functional brain networks and even in brain chemistry. In deep hypnosis, participants report deep relaxation combined with high alertness and focus. That state is the training camp for elite visualization. The EEG study by Niedernhuber and colleagues (2024, Cortex) identifies a frontoparietal network that supports hypnotic states and is linked to attention control. If you have made the perfect jump several times in your mind, you have, in a measurable sense, already trained it.

What sets the OMNI method apart

The OMNI method goes back through Gerald F. Kein, who founded OMNI in DeLand, Florida, in 1979, to Dave Elman. Since 2015, OMNI Hypnosis International has been led from Switzerland by Hansruedi Wipf as President and Adrian Brüngger as CEO. OMNI has been certified to ISO 9001 since 2015. Over 20,000 people have trained with OMNI. What Adrian does with Ehammer, he teaches to therapists, coaches, and sports psychologists in the HypnoSport® program. Method instead of magic. Repeatability instead of secrecy.

What you can do next

For athletes and coaches, the lesson is simple. Sports hypnosis is not a one-off trick before the event. It is a practice that unfolds over weeks and months. If you are looking for a therapist, look for a Certified OMNI Hypnotherapist, or write to us. For everyday life, here is one anchor that works: three minutes before you fall asleep, rehearse the next day in detail in your mind, with images, breath, and body sense. Start small. Stay with it.

If you want to learn hypnosis rather than only experience it, the next step is OMNI hypnotherapy training. The program is open to physicians, psychologists, coaches, sports psychologists, and serious career changers. At the International Hypnosis Congress at the AXA Arena in Winterthur on June 20 and 21, 2026, Adrian Brüngger, Hansruedi Wipf, and the international OMNI community shared this kind of work in live demonstrations, workshops, and talks.

The takeaway

8.51 meters is a number. Years of mental work are a method. Sports hypnosis is the quiet, unspectacular tool that turns a lucky jump into a plan. If you want to understand that tool, your next step is OMNI hypnotherapy training.