Another fantastic result of a Czech coach! In our country, successes could not be sold, he says

Coach of Polish ski jumpers Michal Doležal at last year’s World Championships in Zakopane.

Profimedia.cz

Which year on the bridge were you more nervous?

There was probably no difference, it’s always nerves until the last race. Maybe this time, as Kamil had the lead, the last jump was a little calmer, but we had more competitors in the game. David fought for the podium, in the end we had two more boys in the top six…

However, the overall success collapsed the day before the start of the Tour. One of the competitors had a positive test for covid and for a while it looked like the Polish team would not jump. How were you?

It was hard. I recharged the phone twice during the day, we called in one piece, with the association, the organizing committee in Oberstdorf, then politics stepped in.… But we managed to negotiate that we went for further tests, and they were all negative.

Even your charges were quite frustrated, which was seen in the reactions on social networks. Was it hard to calm them down?

They could only wait, it wasn’t easy, they didn’t know anything… It’s hard to reassure them when they were going on tour and then it looked like they wouldn’t be able to race. But when it turned out that they could race in Oberstdorf, maybe the euphoria kicked them.

Pole Kamil Stoch on the shoulders of compatriots Dawid Kubacký (left) and Piotr Žyla.

Matthias Schrader, ČTK / AP

Kamil Stoch won the Tour for the third time, what is its uniqueness?

He is a complex jumper, a 100% professional and a winning type. He is not interested in another result, he wants to win every training jump. In addition, he can balance everything well in his head.

Only Jens Weissflog and Janne Ahonen have more wins on the Tour. Stoch is 33 years old, can he still catch up?

I don’t think Kamil himself knows how long he will jump. Now he enjoys it, he has motivation, there is an Olympics in a year, so he will definitely try to go into that physical training again.

Even after the Tour, Stoch praised the group in the Polish team, where there are a number of top jumpers. Do you sometimes have to tame their individual ambitions?

Do not have to. The group has been working for a long time, especially Kamil and Dawid are still verbally stroking, but they are cheering and their rivalry pushes them forward even during training.

You are having happy moments with the Polish team, but you will certainly register the suffering that Czech jumpers go through…

Of course, p (coach) We meet Franta Vaculík upstairs every weekend. I wish the whole team that everyone had patience with them, because the boys are trying, but the world is moving forward. I think that there are also material reserves, there are a few meters.

The misery of Czech jumpers? I’m sad, says Janda. What’s next?

When do you think the scissors started to open so much between the Czech and Polish ski jumps? Can it be said that the Poles made much better use of the successes of the Adam Malysz era, while in our country it is not possible to build on Jakub Janda and Roman Koudelka?

Adam is definitely a key figure in the boom, thanks to him, jumps are where they are in Poland. Poles are a nation that can get excited about something, so young jumpers came after it, everyone wanted to jump, the whole country lived by it. And they can sell those successes. We failed to sell when Jandys won, which was a mistake of the then management.

Now you also have an incomparably better infrastructure in Poland, do you believe that the Czech leap from the current crisis can still be achieved?

I hope, now at least they jumped in Harrachov at the age of ninety. Children go to Poland for races where there are different cups, this is the only chance that they will race a lot, because it is difficult with training. And if that doesn’t change, I don’t know what will happen…