Two types of victories are conceivable. On the one hand, the official one, which is honored with a gold medal and anthem at the Olympics. And on the other hand the unofficial, which is, for example, a third place, but means even more to the athlete.
At least that seemed to be the case with ski jumper Karl Geiger from Oberstdorf on Saturday. When it was clear that he had secured bronze, he erupted in jubilation and joy, so much so that it was almost as if he had just won gold on the large hill at Zhangjiakou. After two rounds, the Norwegian Marius Lindvik was the winner and the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi was second. But Lindvik didn’t have any difficulties in the past few days, he even seemed to feel comfortable on these hills with their unfamiliar radius. Completely different Geiger, who succeeded in almost nothing and who now reveals how he felt the whole week – namely “dirty”.
For a ski jumper who always pays attention to inner balance, Geiger spoke surprisingly openly about his state of mind, his Olympic low had even gone so far that he came close to wanting to give up. “I had no idea what I was actually doing here,” he explained. One jump after the other failed, and it didn’t help that others also had difficulties with the last few meters of the inrun on the small ski jump.
This did not give the jumpers the usual feedback about the pressure point that they are used to from most ski jumps in Europe. Rather, the Beijing ski jumps have an even radius, the strain on the muscles does not change, the take-off point, which must come from a feeling at a good 80 kilometers per hour, was also difficult for Geiger to find: “I just got hit and never really knew How do I get out of there?” But there is always a large hill in the Olympic area for the second part.
After his jump, Geiger is barely recognizable as if this were a scene from a fantasy movie
The changeover time was short, but Geiger recognized that he could build up his strengths again here. And an athlete with hope is capable of amazing comebacks, or as Geiger put it, “I managed to flip the switch in my head.” When not only his head, but also his body had understood when he had to jump up here as if from a crouch in order to fly high and fast enough at the same time, it was almost too late – but only almost.
He was barely recognizable as if this were a scene from a fantasy film after his second flight on Saturday, landing over the green line and again at 139 meters. The pale, inward-looking, stony-faced Geiger transformed back into place, as if someone had freed him from an evil curse: Geiger wasn’t just beaming, he was laughing, he was clenching his fists and shouting with happiness.
Suddenly everything was there again. The energy, the right feeling, the confident telemark landing, the confidence, and of course the congratulations from his friend Markus Eisenbichler, who came just ahead of him in the final – after a fabulous distance he was still full of happy hormones and the leader box for Karl very happy to vacate.
In the end, Karl Geiger was still able to cope with the Beijing hills. Anything is possible again in the team competition on Monday.
(Photo: Jiang Kehong/image)
With his medal, the most disappointing scenario is averted for the time being, namely an overall appearance without a medal. Now all jumpers from national coach Stefan Horngacher may have received a boost for the last challenge with this evening. Anything is possible again in the team competition on Monday. The main part of the team consists of Geiger and Eisenbichler, as well as 22-year-old Constantin Schmid, who finished 14th. Horngacher only wants to decide on fourth place on the grid after he has compared Pius Paschke and Stephan Leyhe again in training.
In any case, confidence has returned to the German ski jumping team, and it even made the person most affected sound quite poetic. In any case, Geiger said that the moment he realized he could fly again, it felt like everything was starting all over again, “like a newborn chick hatching from the egg and taking off”. The chick has come quite a long way.
