Ski jumping
Jumpers in the low: dismal prospects for the World Flying Championships and the Olympics
During the tour, the German jumpers have nothing to do with the podium. The view of the Ski Flying World Championships and the Olympics is worrying. The problems go beyond a short-term sporting crisis.
The present is dreary, the future even more dreary? After a disappointing Four Hills Tournament, the German ski jumpers are heading towards the next major events with a lot of uncertainty and great worries. The World Aviation Championships start in Oberstdorf in two and a half weeks. Two weeks later we go to the Olympics. Your own goal is to compete for medals there. But how is this supposed to work?
On the tour, which the Slovenian Domen Prevc triumphantly won, the Germans were only supporting actors. Sixth place for Felix Hoffmann and eighth place for Philipp Raimund are decent results. But they don’t scare the competition. But the even bigger problem is that there is a huge gap behind the two sole operators of the German Ski Association (DSV) in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen.
Wellinger, Geiger and Paschke in the low
Hoffmann and Raimund, who left the tour finale in Pongau injured, can fight for a place on the podium on a good day. The former guarantees of success Andreas Wellinger, Karl Geiger and Pius Paschke are currently very far away from that. Wellinger and Geiger did not make it into the second round of the top 30 jumpers once during the tour.
National coach Stefan Horngacher saw slight progress and said: “We’re going, we’re not standing.” It is very difficult to imagine that Geiger, Wellinger and Paschke will find their way back to their old strength by the season’s highlights on the gigantic Heini-Klopfer ski flying hill in the Allgäu and at the Winter Games in Italy.
At the beginning of the tour, Horngacher had set the goal of having a powerful team of four at the World Aviation Championships in order to win a medal in the team competition. At the Olympics, a change could unexpectedly come to the Germans’ advantage: Instead of the classic team competition with four jumpers, there is now the super team, in which only two athletes per nation take part.
In previous years, at least Wellinger and Geiger would have been removed from the team during the tour and replaced by jumpers in better form. But currently that doesn’t work. There’s just no one there.
“It’s a good question where they are,” says Wellinger about the lack of strong young jumpers who are putting pressure on the established ones. While neighboring Austria has one good young athlete after another attracting attention in the World Cup, Germany has a problem with young talent. At 25, Raimund is the youngest in the team. Hoffmann is 28, everyone else is 30 or older. If promising talents don’t arrive soon, the German team will face difficult years.
“This concerns us enormously – including me in my role. This cannot satisfy us,” says sports director Horst Hüttel about the problems among the youngsters. We have to “analyze intensively and see that we improve the situation as quickly as possible in the next few years”. The DSV has already made adjustments. “But the output that comes from behind is definitely not enough for us.”
Wellinger: “Then a football or tennis racket is easier”
Ski jumping has always been a niche sport. However, getting children and their parents excited about discipline is becoming increasingly difficult, says Wellinger. “You often have to drive half an hour or an hour to the next training session. The effort is simply enormous,” explains the 30-year-old. “And we’re not even talking about the material that’s needed. Then a soccer ball or tennis racket is easier.”
Fewer children in the clubs reduce the chance that someone will make it to the top at some point. “The broader the crowd, the easier it is for people to get through in the end,” says Wellinger.
The Olympic champion, who once discovered his enthusiasm for the ski jumping spectacle while watching TV, has not yet given up hope. “I hope winter sports are alive and we can inspire and motivate children with what we do,” he says. German successes would certainly help.
dpa
