The German ski jumpers are completely out of the form before the World Cup

An excavator is still rolling over the Ringvalvegen 217 in Heimdal, a parking lot on the edge of the forest a few kilometers south of Trondheim, not far away from one end of the beautiful, widely branched trondheim fjord. From here, shuttle buses bring the red-clad, bobble-toped volunteers of the 55th Nordic Ski World Championships to the Granases ski center with the two ski jumps and the cross-country skiing route. 200,000 tickets have already been sold for the 25 competitions. The excavator is still distributing the remaining gravel this Wednesday, the day of the opening ceremony, the area is paving. However, he does not have to clear snow – because it is far too warm in Trondheim for this season, five degrees plus and more. Usually, say here, the thermometer would have to display minus ten or minus fifteen degrees. The snow that was almost a meter high a few weeks ago: almost melted away.

Perhaps this picture of the construction site fits the German ski jumpers quite well. The difference is that the work on the Ringvalvegen is almost complete, while Karl Geiger, Andreas Wellinger, Pius Paschke and colleagues have been in the deepest crisis before the World Cup. While the ski jumpers, who combined Nordic and also long runner Victoria Carl have the best medal opportunities at this World Cup, the German eagles have been jumping behind the four -hill tour since their crash. Opportunities can be expected in a team – or rather in mixed.

The national coach Stefan Horngacher knows a larger audience primarily from the four -hill tour as a master of the Lakonie, who gets to the point straight to the point – even if, like his jumper, like at the latest tour, from ski jump to ski jump, although Pasche had previously dominated the competition in the World Cup with five victories. A week before the World Cup start, Horngacher has a few questions to answer in a-very big-virtual round of talks, and he says: “Yes, first hello to everyone, I see, there is still a lot of interest in ski jump, thank God.” It is a statement with wink, but not only.

On the previous weekend, the DSV athletes managed to land in an even deeper valley, they received their worst World Cup result in Sapporo for 14 years-and for the sixth time they missed a place in series. Despite his ranks 23 and 31, Paschke had “seen a few positive things”, on Sunday Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger jumped ninth. Geiger, with Paschke 2021 in Oberstdorf team world champion from the Großschanze, was not at the start, he preferred to train at home.

Bad jumps, no self -confidence, bad results: The German jumper is in a repeat loop

The difference to the past: The entire team is in the low, i.e. the quintet that starts in Trondheim: Geiger, Paschke, Wellinger, Stephan Leyhe and Philipp Raimund. The six -time world champion Markus Eisenbichler is still not there – too weak.

And the reasons?

Horngacher believes that there can only be a more precise analysis in the spring, but the reasons for this are of course diverse: “The majority of the misery is already in the technical area,” says the Austrian, “in a too long period of too long skiing has been jumped – and that has reinforced a bit over time.” No series of good jumps, no rhythm, no self -confidence, that is Horngacher’s triad.

The national coach speculates that something does not fit completely 100 % even in the material area; In any case, he is surprised that “we are always the fastest when driving down on the trail, but we just don’t have this flight support or the flight feeling what others show.” But it could also be easy that the athletes were too cramped.

Ski jumping begins in the head, already at the top of the beam, it takes great determination to put on the track. There you have to crouch the right position, the right angle – and then manage to withdraw from the hill table at 90 km/h and more no milliseconds. After that, the ski must be gently but quickly put in the wind. Psyche, body, suit, ski, shoes, binding – everything plays into this flight system. Wind and weather are added. If one of these components does not fit, it won’t work with flying.

Geiger recently tried, as he said in the week before the World Cup launch, “to intervene again coarser into the system to break it up”, including better skiing. But the now 32-year-old five-time world champion also knows: “This will be a real challenge because it is already a bit away to the top of the world.” Whether the 20, 30 training jumps he still had in front of Trondheim are enough for the system change? “I don’t know it.”

Wellinger, 29, is also far from spraying euphoria, “especially the past two months have been very tedious”. But who knows what happens on the normal hill that the Germans have often located, on this little bakken in granases, where the men have their qualifications on Saturday and jump around precious metal on Sunday. “We are traditionally always very strong on the small ski jump,” says Horngacher – and sends a small prayer in his Austrian dialect: “If you are in the minus spiral, it goes down for a long time. Now I hope that we have arrived at the bottom and be able to assist ourselves up again. “

“Hopp” is the name of ski jumping here in Norway. Hopp – if it were only so easy for the German jumpers.