Finally, wild wind intervened; it blew from the valley and from the background of the Obwalden mountains and repeatedly crossed the Gross Titlis ski jump in Engelberg in central Switzerland very violently. These are extremely difficult conditions for ski jumpers.
But despite this special meteorological situation, the surprisingly consistent Germans Felix Hoffmann and Philipp Raimund once again asserted themselves very high in the results list, making them two athletes who were in the second row of the German squad last season. After taking second place in calm conditions on Saturday, Hoffmann finally took third place in the light storm on Sunday in the two Engelberg competitions. Raimund came fourth twice.
The Engelberg ski jump was particularly good for Hoffmann; he dominated many runs in training and also dominated both qualifications, which he won in each case. At the age of 28, he finally reached the top of his sport in the world through a second educational opportunity.
Because Hoffmann was unable to leave the B squad for years. To help him get up, he thought of classic ski jumping prose down at the run-out of the jump: “If it goes, then it goes. Right now I can enjoy my flights, there’s joy in it and not so much work.”
Hoffmann, however, did a lot of work in the summer. National coach Stefan Horngacher emphasizes that Hoffmann is “very good physically and athletically.” He has significantly developed his strengths – “a technically good take-off and an incredibly strong feeling of flight” – in the last few months. It also helped him to shift his training focus from his hometown in Thuringia to Chiemgau, where he trained with the established A-squad members Pius Paschke and Andreas Wellinger. “That gave Felix a lot,” explains Horngacher.
Paschke, Wellinger and Geiger are weak
Above all, he was able to clearly overtake and distance Paschke and Wellinger – and Karl Geiger, the third German jumper to date, with him. While Paschke is currently ranked 22nd in the overall World Cup rankings and is still looking for his form, Geiger and Wellinger were removed from the World Cup team due to acute underperformance in order to train separately.
For Horngacher, this is a completely unusual situation in his team. It doesn’t take the form of a contagious negative spiral because Hoffmann and Raimund took the opportunity to establish themselves as the leaders of the German team.
Raimund is a lively, 25-year-old man who has more energy than anyone else in the squad. However, this ferocity didn’t help him on the hill. After extensive advice on jumping technique from the coaching team of the German Ski Association, Raimund has now slowed himself down and realized: “Now I know that 80 percent effort before the jump is enough for me to take off at the top. After that, the transition is perfect and I can concentrate on flying.”
This principle is currently taking hold, and with the strong results – a second place, three third places and most recently two fourth places in eleven World Cup competitions – “confidence is growing and suddenly there is consistency”.
Domen Prevc is the big favorite
Wellinger and Geiger, on the other hand, recently experienced the opposite. In some cases they didn’t even manage to qualify for the field of the best 50 jumpers. Horngacher therefore prescribed intensive and special jumping training for the two of them, which he held primarily on the small ski jumps in Oberstdorf, Planica and the Olympic ski jumps in Predazzo.
Geiger, who was delegated to practice a week before Wellinger, will have completed a good 80 jumps by the start of the Four Hills Tournament next Monday, while Wellinger will have done around 60. According to Horngacher, both of them have established a jumping idea that is currently no longer effective.
Horngacher emphasizes that it is difficult to solve this problem, but recently Wellinger has felt again what is currently necessary in terms of the approach, the take-off and the flight phase in order to be able to jump long distances with suits that are now more tightly cut according to the regulations. It’s similar with Geiger. Both are also part of the German squad for the Four Hills Tournament. But according to Horngacher, they couldn’t win there.
Hoffmann and Raimund travel to the first tour stop in Oberstdorf much more success-oriented. But Horngacher doesn’t count them as big favorites. In this role he primarily sees the Slovenian Domen Prevc, who has won five of the last six competitions. Nevertheless, Hoffmann and Raimund “could have a very good tour”.
