The Olympic slalom on Thursday could have been the crowning glory of Felix Neureuther’s career. Instead, he has to watch – a role that hurts.
Felix Neureuther can still remember the moments when he became a bit cocky, when all his hopes for the crowning of a great career were dashed. They had told him not to do this training run anymore, good for today. But Neureuther, best things, because in good shape, drove nevertheless, wanted to do too much and with force a swing, and then:”My knee exploded.”
And now what? He sits at home, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Munich, while they gave the starting numbers for the slalom in Pyeongchang on Wednesday.
One, that slalom in which he would have wanted to take the gold from Marcel Hirscher – and there are many who say: also can. Neureuther was before this winter, at the beginning of this winter, with the victory in the Levi slalom and at the time of the rupture of the cruciate ligament at that 25th anniversary of his death. November in the form of his life.
“I resigned myself to not being there,”he said at the end of January when he sat at the Postpalast in Munich, surrounded by German athletes collecting their equipment for Pyeongchang.
For a short time Neureuther had considered flying to South Korea in spite of the broken knee, he let it stay, but emphasized:”If Munich had been the host, they would have had to cut me off both Hax’ n so that I wouldn’t go with them”.
But last week, Neureuther also sat in a TV studio in Unterföhring near Munich as a guest of the show “2018” at Eurosport, but even there he could only tell what it was like to watch the Olympic Games, his first spectators since 2002, from home “I am a total Olympic fan and watch everything, no matter what, even curling. I’m all in,”he said. It was audible that he was suffering.
In recent weeks, Neureuther has repeatedly expressed his extreme determination and criticism about the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee and the loss of Olympic values.
“Olympia will be driven up against the wall,”he scolded in the Postal Palace. He seems personally offended when he says something like that, because for him, for his mother “Gold-Rosi”, father Christian and wife Miriam, Olympia is in fact the greatest thing of all.
And therefore: Yes, says Neureuther,”it hurts when you have to watch. From this point of view, Masochism equals what he wanted to do on the night of Thursday at the German time (from 2:00 a. m.): from Munich to Pyeongchang to comment on the slalom with the Eurosport reporters on site. Gold favorite Hirscher told him in advance by video message:”Don’t talk too much bullshit.” Little joke on the side.
The truth is: Hirscher misses Neureuther, everyone misses Neureuther, the Germans miss him anyway, and Neureuther, of course, misses Olympia, even if it now takes place in Pyeongchang – and it doesn’t want to be Beijing after that. Olympia is Olympia. It is therefore difficult to imagine that Neureuther will only be able to sit and watch at home again in four years’ time. Even if he’s already 37 years old.