The time between Christmas and January 6 belongs to ski jumping. It’s the time when people interested in sports turn on the TV and go ski jumping when it gets dark. Although, to be more precise, it is a special kind of ski jumping, namely male. A winner has been chosen 71 times since 1953 after eight jumps – two each at the four tour locations of Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. Not a winner yet.
That should change, everyone in the sport is sure of it, and a date has already been set. According to this plan, the upcoming edition, which starts with the qualification on December 28th, would be the last all-men tour, the edition in the following year, i.e. in winter 2023/2024, should be the tour premiere of the women ski jumpers. But now Roswitha Stadlober, President of the Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV), has declared that nothing will come of the plan. There are still unresolved problems, she said German press agencyone still places “many factors to be considered, which do not allow an earlier introduction”.
After all, it is currently half a women’s tour, the German Ski Association has already registered the locations of Garmisch and Oberstdorf as tour competitions for the coming season with the World Association Fis. Nevertheless, the disappointment is great. For diplomatic reasons, most jumpers held back on what was a gloomy Friday for them. According to reports, however, the Germans, for example, are at least appalled. It is likely to be the same for all international competitors. Because the fact that the joint tour will start in the year after next is also not yet certain. We’re talking about “not before 2024/25”.
The tour planners have often proved to be masters at organizing
Arguably one of the unsolved issues remains the timing and travel schedule of a men’s and women’s tour. It’s actually not that easy to solve, because the tour is also characterized by the fact that you hardly have any time during the quiet time. In the eleven days, the men already get into problems with weather-related shifts, now the women are supposed to come along too. The question of whether they should perform on the same day, as a kind of support act for the men, or whether it would be better to start their own tour that goes in the opposite direction, from Austria to Germany, is also discussed. Alexander Stöckl, the Austrian coach of Norway’s men, now said in Engelberg that the women jumpers shouldn’t “fall behind the men” either.
It is basically correct if you don’t want to embarrass yourself with an insufficiently organized premiere. But is this really a threat? The tour planners have decades of experience, they have helped develop a sport that could not appear more perfect in its processes. They defy the weather, the snow or foehn storms on Innsbruck’s Bergisel, they are even planning scenarios for the time without snow in Central Europe, which is sure to come. With such expertise, it is understandable that the women ski jumping at the highest level, who have prepared for their own high point of the year, are annoyed.
The joy may have been lost for a moment: Katharina Althaus started the ski jumping season brilliantly.
(Photo: Eibner/Memmler/Imago)
So the question is what would be more detrimental: the prospect of some detailed problems still unresolved after twelve months – or the collective disappointment of all ski jumpers who have been at the Olympics since 2014 and have been at the world championships for some time; have long been producing their own young athletes and establishing their own structures.
Should the last major event of the winter change from a conservative men’s event to a contemporary overall event, this would be a long overdue step for quite a few spectators, indeed a symbol of the end of the old way of thinking. For the time being, the International Four Hills Tournament for men and women remains a half thing.
