Andreas Widhölzl He doesn’t like to hear his knights Superadler be called. Based on the successful Austrian generation around Thomas Morgenstern and Gregor Schlierenzauer, who a decade and a half ago landed one sporting coup after another on the ski jumps around the world.
Widhölzl considers it as Head coach prefers to be down-to-earth and doesn’t tend to stand out. Even if his ski jumpers float in other spheres. “I’m really scared that everyone believes that it will continue like this and that we’ll tear everything apart,” admits the successful Tyrolean coach before the season opener on Friday in Lillehammer.
Points record
Austria’s jumpers had air sovereignty last winter and at times reduced the competition to flight attendants. Apart from the Four Hills Tournament, the Austrians have won all the titles and trophies there are in ski jumping.
Stefan Kraft won the overall World Cup for the third time, Daniel Huber secured the Ski Flying World Cup, Austria won the nations ranking with a new points record and 3,000 points ahead of Slovenia. Dominator Stefan Kraft also won gold at the Ski Flying World Championships on Kulm and celebrated 13 World Cup victories. At the end of the season, Andreas Widhölzl’s team had a total of 41 podium places, 20 of which were victories. “A season like this is difficult to repeat or top,” says the coach.
But on the other hand, what speaks against Austrians continuing to have their main residence on cloud nine?
Widhölzl raves about the development of Jan Hörl and Daniel Tschofenigwho recently even surpassed overall World Cup winner Stefan Kraft in training. “I not only have a winning jumper, but also a brutally good team where everyone can strike.”
Power density
If there really is a problem area in the Austrian ski jumping team, it is that there are too many candidates for too few starting places. Because the 18 year old Stephan Embacher became junior world champion in the spring and the 39-year-old Manuel Fettner won the Continental Cup in the summer, the ÖSV received two additional starting places and can field at least seven athletes in Lillehammer.
Nevertheless, Andreas Widhölzl has to demote highly talented ski jumpers to the Continental Cup who would be regular starters and top performers in any other nation. “Those are the hardest decisions for me when I can’t take people with me into the World Cup who deserve it.”