Andreas Wellinger is on the way back to old strength. At the Four Hills Tournament, the Olympic champion also talks about his toughest sporting times – and a coffee cup.
Andreas Wellinger never let his joie de vivre and laughter be stolen from him, even during his most difficult sporting times. At the Four Hills Tournament, the good mood of the 2018 Olympic ski jumping champion has long since matched his performances on the hill.
While the guarantors of success in recent years, Karl Geiger and above all Markus Eisenbichler, are falling short of their expectations, Wellinger is a ray of hope in the German team. The first podium finish in a World Cup individual in over four years seems more realistic than it has been for a long time.
“The loop becomes looser and looser and at some point the knot comes undone again,” said Wellinger at the halfway point of the tour. At the picturesque Rießersee he joked with Geiger at a media round of the German Ski Association. Even off the hill, Wellinger plays a central role in the team with his relaxed manner. Of course, it is even more important: sixth place in Oberstdorf, eighth place in the New Year’s competition and sixth place in the overall tour standings show that Wellinger is back among the extended world elite.
Cruciate ligament tear in 2019 changes everything
It was not necessarily foreseeable that the action sports fan from Bavaria would make it there again. With three medals – including gold in the individual on the normal hill – Wellinger shaped the Winter Games in Pyeongchang. A cruciate ligament rupture in June 2019 changed the course of his career completely. During the tour, Wellinger gives insights into his emotional world during the hard and long struggle to keep fit in the past.
“Especially when the reality of the cruciate ligament rupture comes and you sit there and think, shit, I can’t even pick up a coffee cup, it’s pretty depressing,” Wellinger said. “I had to watch the other guys jumping and I thought to myself: damn, I want to be there too.” However, Wellinger never lost his motivation when looking for a form. “Fortunately, I never thought about quitting,” he clarified.
Although Wellinger was fit again, his sport had evolved. Things that used to work just didn’t work anymore. The former top performer and winning jumper temporarily slipped out of the World Cup team. He was not nominated for the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. Last summer there were finally indications that things were going up. As a German champion, Wellinger started in the World Cup. He is currently an integral part of national coach Stefan Horngacher’s team.
Comeback on the podium as a goal
“What he has done now was very, very good. We are very satisfied with that,” the 53-year-old coach praised his athlete. “You have to start in the top ten if you want to get back up there.” The goal is a comeback on the podium.
“It’s three or four meters too little to write at the front,” said Wellinger. “We are on a very, very good path. I will continue to be fully motivated.” Even the tour podium is not completely out of reach – even if the top jumpers around the outstanding Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud seem almost unbeatable at the moment.
“We want to make life a bit harder for the first three,” said Wellinger, with a view to the upcoming tour competitions in Innsbruck on Wednesday (1.30 p.m. / ARD and Eurosport) and Bischofshofen. In a typical way, he added: “We want to open the door and not just look in, but kick in the door if possible.”
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
