Gold for Austria in the ski jumping super team competition

“I’m very relieved. Hats off to the boys,” said head coach Andreas Widhölzl. “The last week and a half haven’t been easy. It’s very cool that it turned out like this. This team competition still mobilizes strength. The two of them were really relaxed today for the first time.”

The classic team competition with four athletes is history at the Olympics; medals were awarded for the first time Super team competition awarded. Two athletes per nation started in three rounds.

Jan Hörl started with an excellent jump and immediately put Austria in the lead with 10 points. Stephan Embacher was even able to extend his lead in tailwind conditions. 12 of the 17 teams qualified for the second round.

A crosswind came up, but Hörl stayed cool. Embacher also achieved a fantastic second jump. After the second round, gold was already on the silver platter.

Farce im Finish

Eight teams were allowed to start in the final round. And Austria didn’t let anything go wrong there either. Jan Hörl jumped to 137.5 meters and did a telemark. But then the competition was interrupted before the last six jumpers. The wind was too strong and heavy snow began to fall.

Stephan Embacher had to wait a long time at the top; the 20-year-old was snowed in at the top of the jump. He tried to protect himself from the cold and wet with a blanket. The competition turned into a farce in the finish. There was more discussion than jumping.

But the jury’s decision came much too late: the competition was canceled and with it gold for Austria.

Olympic champion Hörl said in his first reaction that he was “speechless” – and then chatted cheerfully: “We got up today and had such a good feeling and said, today we’re attacking. The fact that we’re enjoying it like that is brutally cool. We haven’t had a medal yet, that was a bit tough until today, and then we’ll be at the top and can hang a gold medal on our shoulders. We were very relaxed. And tonight we’ll enjoy it a lot and celebrate together.”

A little later (already with the gold medal around his neck) Stephan Embacher said: “I sat up there for a long time. At the beginning I thought it was cool, but then it became a bit much. I lay down, put a blanket over it and closed my eyes. You dream of becoming an Olympic champion, but then that surpassed everything.”