North.

Olympic champion Eric Frenzel will go to his home game in Klingenthal this weekend with his little daughter Emma as a fan and many good memories: “I am very happy that we will finally have another World Cup here after 2013,” says the combiner before the two competitions in his Saxon home country. Klingenthal is only 70 kilometres from Frenzel’s birthplace Annaberg-Buchholz.

Frenzel is supported for the first time by his nine-month-old daughter Emma:”Of course I will give everything in front of my daughter. Home games are there to be won,” Frenzel wrote in his column in Oberpfalzecho. The 29-year-old had become a father for the third time last June.

Klingenthal is a very good place for Frenzel: In January 2008 he won the first World Cup of his career there as a teenager, at his last guest appearance in 2013 he celebrated a double victory: “I associate many good memories with the place and also the fans. It was always one of the most beautiful World Cups of the year for me,” he says.

In the overall World Cup, however, Frenzel has no chance of winning his sixth crystal ball in a row. The focus is therefore on the duel between Akito Watabe and Jan Schmid. Four competitions before the end of the season Watabe has a 178-point lead over the Norwegian, so the Japanese could already inherit his friend Frenzel in Klingenthal.