World Cup in Poland: “Jumping is simply bad”: the ski jump crisis continues

The former series winner Pius Paschke is completely out of shape, and Andreas Wellinger also has nothing to do with the podium at the moment. The German ski jumpers are continuing their negative streak after the Four Hills Tournament and have been without a podium place for over a month. One day after finishing fourth in the team competition, Karl Geiger was the best German individual in eighth place (134 and 134 meters) on Sunday in Zakopane, Poland.

“I’m definitely not satisfied. We’re going through a phase at the moment that isn’t entirely easy. We have to be content with individual small successes,” said Wellinger, describing the ski jumpers’ current tricky situation. There is no real encouragement with a view to the home games in Oberstdorf and Willingen on the next two weekends. “We are currently a bit behind,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher.

Hannawald: Not enough for “the big trombone”

The season, which began so gloriously and with a total of five individual victories for veteran Paschke, is becoming increasingly difficult – the jumpers have been in a single downward trend since mid-December. “You’re always looking for some reasons. They just jump badly. They have to change that again so that they can play the big trumpet,” said ARD expert Sven Hannawald – and that even before the next serious sporting defeat.

The big trumpet, as former ski jumping star Hannawald calls it, is still mainly played by the Austrians. In the team competition, tour winner Daniel Tschofenig and Co. won without any problems and with a lead of more than 40 points.

In the individual at the traditional ski jumping location, Tschofenig went one better and achieved another success. Johann André Forfang from Norway and Austria’s Jan Hörl completed the podium. “It would be nice if we could hear a different song than the one,” said Geiger, referring to Austria’s anthem.

Meanwhile, the German team is feeling somewhat perplexed. At the tour ski jumps in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, the Horngacher team seemed to have no chance in almost all rounds. After that, Paschke in particular slowed down significantly again.

Not much time left until the World Cup

“We trained really well. Everything was as usual. It was difficult here from the first jump. Free flying is extremely lacking. It’s a shame because I didn’t help the team much,” said Paschke. 37th place in the qualification and 32nd place in the individual fit the picture. The Bavarian lost the yellow jersey in the New Year’s competition. Since then, the backlog has been gradually growing.

National coach Horngacher classified some performances differently. The head coach called fourth place in the team behind Austria, Slovenia and Norway “very positive” and justified this with the poor training performance. “It’s not yet as it should be. It could have been much worse. It was a good team performance,” said Horngacher. During the tour, the 55-year-old had seemed strangely unambitious at times.

Horngacher has around five weeks until the Nordic World Ski Championships. The path to get there is marked by two atmospheric home games and then trips to the USA and Japan. There isn’t much time for training. And expectations remain high. “There’s a lot of hustle and bustle, the boys have spoiled us all,” said Hannawald. There can no longer be any talk of this at the moment.