WITHback to the roots, back to the site of the breakthrough. Engelberg has dressed up for the best ski jumpers in the world – but above all for one: Karl Geiger. The 28-year-old from Oberstdorf has special ties to the idyllically situated monastery village in the Swiss mountains. Geiger won his first World Cup competition three years ago on the Titlis hill. A milestone, as he said at the time. It was the beginning of his great career, which Geiger has since adorned with numerous successes at world championships and the Olympic Games.
Engelberg is a special place in the world cup circus for ski jumpers. Up here at an altitude of 1000 meters, important stakes are hammered in every year. The dress rehearsal for the Four Hills Tournament is the ultimate yardstick for the hill performers. The fact that Geiger is one of the favorites in the first of two World Cup competitions this Saturday (4 p.m. on ZDF and Eurosport) in the white and blue Engelberg winter dream is the result of hard, conscientious work. Geiger is the overall leader in the inrun of the largest Swiss natural hill. And before the family man from the Allgäu is looking for the perfect mix of approach, jump and landing for the first time, he has already found his first happiness.
“I hope again that Engelberg is covered in deep snow and that we can experience cool competitions there,” he said before leaving Oberstdorf. Engelberg is actually covered in deep snow. The conditions are first class, and not only ski flying world champion Geiger is hoping for long and stylistically clean jumps. His friend and roommate Markus Eisenbichler has also gotten off to a good start in this superlative ski jumping winter, which has three highlights on offer: the 70th Four Hills Tournament, the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing and the Ski Flying World Championships in Norway.
Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger has also gradually found the right feeling for the diverse requirements in the complex outdoor sport of ski jumping after his long injury-related loss. Stephan Leyhe, like Wellinger, long out of action after a cruciate ligament rupture, has already made it into the top ten. The six-person German core team, with whom national coach Stefan Horngacher will also travel to the Four Hills Tournament, is completed by the stable jumping Pius Paschke and the carefree junior of the team, Constantin Schmid.
“One of the favorites to win the tour”
Despite all the harmony and unity: it is Geiger who stands out. The man who has been on a roller coaster ride in the past twelve months. In Engelberg, one of his favorite competitions, he had to pass at short notice. He was infected with Corona and was stuck at home in Oberstdorf. For a long time it was not clear whether the start of the Four Hills Tournament would be in time.
Karl Geiger, 2018 in Engelberg
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Image: AFP
But it worked. Geiger won the opening event on his home hill, in the end he came second in the overall standings. He already had a big title in his pocket. Geiger flew to the World Cup coup in Planica, the land of the giant Slovene hills. A few days later he became a father. Then came Corona, the missed start in Engelberg. But now the five-time world champion is back.
Geiger doesn’t want to put pressure on himself. But he knows that expectations are high. Not only Horngacher, but also his Tyrolean compatriot Alexander Stöckl, who has been the trainer of the Norwegians for the overall World Cup winner Halvor Egner Granerud for many years, thinks of Oberstdorf. “Karl is one of the hot favorites to win the tour,” said Stöckl in a video conference when he, corona infected, spoke up on Thursday from his quarantine hotel in Klingenthal.
Geiger and Engelberg – that is something special. “Before I won there, I couldn’t stand the hill at all,” Geiger told the FAZ. “I didn’t understand how it worked. It was dubious, but then it clicked. I like them. ”The days in the Engelberg winter idyll will show how much.
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