AEven on the day after his outburst of frustration, Karl Geiger could not hide the anger over his Innsbruck mistake with drastic words. “It’s really a bitter pill that you have to swallow,” said the ski jumper from Oberstdorf on Monday around 20 hours after his probably decisive mistake in the race for the golden eagle for the winner of the Four Hills Tournament. Although Geiger was one night away and after a video analysis outwardly calm again, the Allgäu was still a long way from his usual appearance as a carefree cheerful person.
With almost 14 meters behind the leading veteran Kamil Stoch from Poland, everyone in the German team knows: The wait for the first tour victory since Sven Hannawald in 2002 will most likely continue. “He definitely misses the chances for victory,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher after Geiger’s 16th place on the German Schicksalsschanze on Bergisel. The Tyrolean had no illusions: “A miracle should happen now.”
Hope for a miracle
Geiger, who “vomited” immediately after the repeated mood killer on the complicated hill, does not believe that this will happen. “I have to skip the overall standings now,” he said.
Geiger really wants to use the rest day before the big tour finale in Bischofshofen on this Wednesday (4.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Four Hills Tournament, on ZDF and Eurosport) as such and let ski jumping be ski jumping. “I’ll be looking for a little distance from the sport”, announced the 27-year-old in the team hotel in Lans near Innsbruck. “At some point the system is overloaded.”
“Broken neck”: Frustration with Karl Geiger after the mistake on the tour
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Image: dpa
It is not surprising that this is the case with Geiger. After all, since the beginning of the season in November, the Oberstdorf resident has experienced as much as other ski jumpers have not in several years. Geiger’s previous winter script already includes a ski flying world title, the birth of his daughter Luisa shortly afterwards, a corona quarantine and the triumph at the home game on Oberstdorf’s Schattenberg. And the season is far from over. With the World Cup on the doorstep in Bavaria, another big highlight awaits.
This is another reason why Horngacher hopes that Geiger’s frustration is not too deep. “We must not let the situation drag us down under any circumstances, we have to concentrate on our work,” said the Austrian. In the sensitive ski jumping sport, small setbacks can quickly turn into big performance dips.
Backlog for violinists
While his top athletes Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler, who is in fifth place in the overall standings, made it pretty clear that victory is all that counts for them on the tour, Horngacher appealed: “If you get a podium finish in the Four Hills Tournament you are also a very, very, very, very, very good ski jumper. That’s how we have to see it now. ”The 51-year-old hopes that the lack of looseness in his athletes will come back without the great pressure.
With Geiger, the family could also help. “We wrote a little yesterday, I got a picture. That’s nice, “said the flying world champion and actually smiled. Despite all the disappointment, last year’s overall World Cup runner-up was also combative. “It has happened quite often that you have to wade through the mud and I will now march through that,” he announced.
In third place and the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud, who also suffered a bitter defeat at the first stop in Austria, Geiger is a little more than two meters short. Last year’s winner Dawid Kubacki and the outstanding Stoch seem out of reach. “I’m sorry for Karl and Halvor, but that’s part of ski jumping,” said Stoch.
On the way to his third tour victory, the 33-year-old three-time Olympic champion can only beat himself. After a positive Corona test in his team at the beginning of the tour, he was briefly disqualified – but like his teammates, he was allowed to start after negative results.
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