Peter Penz and Georg Fischler, who won the overall ninth Olympic medal in doubles for Austrians on Wednesday, answered journalists’ questions after their silver medal:
Question: What was the first feeling when you fixed the medal after the disappointment of four years ago?
Penz:”Yes, what do you feel? It was an incredible feeling. We have taken part in a lot of things, we have, to a certain extent, still had an open account with Olympia. But an Olympic bill is not easy to pay. That’s why you could see the emotions in the pictures anyway. You can’t describe the emotions better than what you saw in the target. So much pressure has fallen off. But we also went into the race extremely hard for the Olympic Games. It was a lot of fun to come to South Korea and deliver a great performance on the track.”
Question: Did David Gleirscher’s gold medal make it a little easier or is it just not important because you yourself had this pressure?
Fischler:”No sure, it was beautiful for David, it was huge. On the other hand, it’s fine when you see how the material runs. From that point of view it was all right, but we always said we have to look at ourselves. We have to make our medal, and that’s come through now, thank God.”
Question: Can you tell me in more detail what are the reasons behind Olympia’s decision and how hard it was to get here?
Penz:”We finished third four years ago after the first run and finished 19th. have become. I don’t think there’s anything more savage (laughs). I believe what is very difficult: firstly, it is four years later, and so much can happen in four years’ time. But I believe we have learned an enormous amount from what happened four years ago. Not only sporty, but also human. You learn from defeats, I can underline that.”
Question: Have you changed something decisive about your material?
Penz:”We have made a system change. So far, we have travelled on one track, whether it was warm or cold, whether it was minus 20 or plus 10 degrees. We’ve always been comfortable with it. If you get second, third or second place in every race, the questions have come up whether you don’t want to win, but we didn’t care. We were happy to be able to ride in the front. Now we drove here and in contrast to Sochi we didn’t want to force it, but simply let it come. We can be extremely proud of ourselves both of us.”
Question: This is certainly the best moment in your career, isn’t it?
Fischler:”Absolutely. Neither of us has really realized it yet. It’s just something special, you’ve been waiting so long for it and it’s gone wrong before, once we weren’t qualified before. It’s been an extremely long, hard road for us.”
Question: In the second run there was a small slide inside. Have you been sweating?
Penz:”Sweating doesn’t go out in time.”
Question: When you follow such a big goal for so long and reach it, you sometimes feel emptiness. But already tomorrow we will continue with the relay?
Penz:”Now we are in the now. We are professional enough to know what we have to do. We will sleep comfortably, prepare the sledges and attack at full throttle. Now we’ll just enjoy it.”
Question: What does that mean for both of your families? It’s such a very emotional moment.
Penz:”We have already seen a video from Thaur anyway, I think there were 60 or 70 people at Georg’s home in the underground car park. Mighty mood, yes, I think they’re all very happy. I don’t know if my wife looked at it.”
Fischler:”I think they were more nervous than we were.
Penz:”I believe that too (laughs). For us it was a megacool race. I’m sure you’re thinking about what can happen. We’ve learned from four years of real learning, and that’s how things turn out.”
Question: If you go through the ups and downs and see what you’ve experienced here: Has the tobogganing family now grown together even more?
Penz:”It was before. That’s our enormous strength: we know what David Gleirscher drives for a material, we know what the Lingers and the Schiegls did. We know which line is which one. There is a disdain between two-seater and one seater, which is now the supreme discipline, that’s for sure – this is two-seater (laughs). No, defamatory.”
Fischler:”I think if you drive through the finish line and you can see how happy the whole team is, then you don’t have to say much more.”
Penz:”And we also know how others feel, because four years ago we had the same thing. But you’re really happy for the others because you’re just a team.”