Nordic Ski World Cup: Ski jumper at the end of the big hill

When the rain moved, the wind lay down and the air looked as clear as the water in the fjord, you could see it in the morning: two slim ski jumps, harmoniously swung into the hilly landscape and, from below, threateningly high. There it was again, the old question of what it is, the athlete leads to plunge from a narrow bench at a height of almost 78 meters, and two long boards on the feet. The short answer, presented by national coach Stefan Horngacher, is: “Because it is a cool thing.”

It is by no means a provocation to find out the driving force for the exercise of a risk sport as part of a Nordic World Cup. Because the topic, in all its facets, also employs the athletes. It is even a basic prerequisite for her daily action, as Andreas Wellinger explains: “We are ski jumper,” he says, “because we are looking for the feeling in the air when the body becomes easy when the skis is added if you start to float. That is what we strive for. ” The ultimate challenge is therefore not overcoming – it is in constant, rarely achieved attempt to find the lightness in severe. To fly almost like a bird for seconds.

The first ski jump in granases, in the sports park at the gates of Trondheim, was built in 1940, and the Großschanze was added in 1960. They were remodeled and rebuilt several times and fundamentally modernized for this World Cup, such as the entire winter sports center, including a cross-country trail network. When the two -time Olympic champion Wellinger, 29, in the days before the World Cup, raised his little philosophical excursus about the fascination of his sport, he was still prepared for the title fights, in the middle of a difficult crisis that had been having hit the entire German men’s team in December – almost out of nowhere. In the meantime, they have found back on track to some extent, in their “feeling”, but it was hard work that strained the patience of the athletes. And the placking is by no means over.

Karl Geiger works with pictures in the head, Andreas Wellinger “instructions”

Last week in Trondheim, somewhat surprisingly in view of the self-doubt, the World Cup silver medal on the normal hill behind the Norwegian Marius Lindvik, the five-time world champion Karl Geiger was fourth. But after the change to the larger Bakken this week, only two other fourth places were made in the mixed and men’s team competition, which were perceived by the athletes as disappointment. The changeover was less smooth than hoped, national coach Stefan Horngacher analyzed: “It’s not that easy here. The ski jump is very own. ” This Saturday, the penultimate World Cup day, is now the final competition. And so it can be stated from the large hill before the individual jumping: the point at which the DSV athletes are disappeared by their problems, where they can look back on their crisis from above from above, may not yet have been reached.

Karl Geiger was thoroughly misjudged the second jump on Thursday because he calculated in the timing of the offset by a fraction of a second, as he said. He landed too early after 119 meters, which frustrated the perfectionist. In front of the World Cup, he had explained how he “broken up” his entire system in the crisis and “put the individual parts backed up”, as if it were not a flowing movement, but a mechanics like a defective drive shaft. If he found the mistake and put together the whole thing again, then he makes a detailed plan for every jump. He considers the idea that a ski jumper was sitting on the bar on the beam, simply jumping onto the track and running the ski for folklore – or an absurdity. He has a picture in the head, “and in this picture are five, six or seven points that I would like to implement” – more or less at the same time, because a mental priority is not possible in the air in the air. Sounds complicated? Ski jumping is a matter of the head, the athletes say. Wellinger, who recently reached granases around 130 meters, says that he has fewer pictures in mind than “instructions that I give myself”.