There wasn’t much snow at the Four Hills Tournament in Oberstdorf in December. Image: EPA
With a view to climate change, the ski association is thinking about competitions in mobile indoor halls – also in Saudi Arabia. Ski jumping does not depend on winter and snow. This has been known for 30 years.
In the final of the Four Hills Tournament, when Andreas Wellinger tried everything again, the overall winner struck decisively. With his penultimate jump in the competition, Ryoyu Kobayashi, the best ski jumper of recent years, dashed all of the German’s hopes. Wellinger would have had to make up 10.55 meters with the last jump – impossible. Since Sven Hannawald’s coup 22 years ago, the dream of winning the Four Hills Tournament, which drives German athletes and makes them travel ambitiously to Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, has remained a dream. Do they have another two decades to fulfill it?
With a view to climate change, there are new, surprising, adventurous-sounding sounds to be heard from the world of ski jumping. Sandro Pertile, the race director of the International Ski Federation (FIS), wants to revolutionize the outdoor sport. He thinks of ski jumping in the football stadium in Rio de Janeiro or in the desert of Dubai. A pipe dream? The South Tyrolean believes in the power of sport and hopes for support from sponsors.
