You can turn it around as you like and look for all sorts of reasons: wind lottery, bad shape or long waiting times. In their opening competition of the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang/Alpensia, the naked figures confirm that Austria’s ski jumpers have achieved the worst result in an Olympic normal hill competition for no less than 46 years.
1972 on the Bakken Miyanomori of Sapporo there were only the ranks 26,29 and 36 for Austria. In the competition that has been held since 1924, i. e. at all winter games, the ÖOC selection has won a total of 6 x gold, 7 x silver and 10 x bronze on the initially only (normal) hill. Austria has been waiting for an Olympic victory in this competition since Ernst Vettori’s success at Albertville in 1992.
Ten years later, Austria’s ski jumping eagle had remained without any Olympic precious metal at all in Salt Lake City, and back then there was no top ten place from the small town of Bakken. No one in the ÖSV camp was satisfied with the current ranks 13,17,22 and 23 in South Korea on Saturday shortly after midnight (local time).
At least Stefan Kraft (13th) could have landed much further ahead with a bit of luck or less risk. The double world champion was only 3.1 points down to bronze after the first round in sixth place,”If you’re so close to the medal, then you go all-in. He was a little too greedy over the stem and lost a few meters,”said head coach Heinz Kuttin. At the Olympics it doesn’t matter whether you finish fifth, eighth or 15th. I will.
Manuel Fettner (23rd) saw it quite similarly:”It counts 1 to 3, whether you are fourth or 31st. is completely irrelevant. The Olympic debutant at the age of 32 told the team that it was a good thing to come back in practice,” but I think that everyone is so realistic that he knows that at the moment there really has to be a lot of matching up. And I’m not even talking about the conditions,”said Fettner.
Looking at statistics does not, of course, interest the athletes of the present day at all. What they are interested in is looking ahead. On the big one we will see how we continue to do. Now we won’t be ski jumping for two days,”Kraft said. The team would like to go to the stadium for the biathlon sprint:”We’ve never seen this before, and we all want to watch it”.
Gregor Schlierenzauer (22nd) wants to use the time to watch Cousin Hannah Prock making her Olympic toboggan debut:”Of course, I’m looking at Hannah”. Michael Hayböck (17th) wants to clear his head and watch other things and “see how they cope with the wind. The biathletes won’t have it that easy either”.
What some ski-jumping fans will remember for a long time from this Olympic competition is the almost heroic will of Simon Ammann. The four-time Olympic gold medallist kept his nerves in the freezing cold, was called back six times (!) by the literally “trembling beam”. The 36-year-old Swiss was repeatedly warmed up with a blanket in makeshift condition. After about ten minutes he was finally let off in the seventh attempt and jumped into the second Olympic day shortly after midnight.
The 104.5 m, which brought Ammann eleventh place at the end of the race, could not be assessed high enough:”That was a Braveheart competition”, said the frozen Ammann and added,”I have never operated like this at the limit before”.
Anyone expecting a Swiss confederate swearword was surprised. He congratulated the deserving winner Andreas Wellinger in a sporty and fair manner. Last year, the German had lost out to Stefan Kraft several times last year, but now Wellinger has won his first gold medal after team Olympic gold. However, the extremely late start time of ski jumping at 9.35 pm remains to be questioned. Especially for spectators on the spot, with, of course, unpredictable, low temperatures, no revelation. In the end, only a few fans remained.