Germans at the Four Hills Tournament: National coach Horngacher has to do the balancing act

Friday morning, 9:30 a.m., outside on the frozen Riessersee, a family is playing ice hockey, the two children pass the puck back and forth. The father clears the area of ​​snow with a shovel. It’s always a balancing act for parents: Do we let the children on the ice? It is thick enough, it has been cold in the past few days even below the Alp and Zugspitze, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where the Riessersee is located. At some point a dozen people play ice hockey and they even score goals. A team was formed, just like that. Inside, in the fireplace room of the Seehaus with a view of the ice hockey family, national ski jumping coach Stefan Horngacher is also attempting a balancing act at the half-time balance: an explanation of how it can be that his team has split into two groups this season.

One group: Felix Hoffmann and Philipp Raimund, who are fourth and sixth in the overall ranking before the competitions in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. Although far behind the Slovenian Domen Prevc, who had run away, he still has a chance of getting on the podium. The other group: Pius Paschke, 25th in the tour rankings, Andreas Wellinger, 39th, and Karl Geiger in 49th place. Horngacher says in front of a panoramic painting with the Alp and Zugspitze massifs: “I have to make sure that my two super jumpers are currently completing the tour well and working towards the podium. And I have to make sure that I get the other athletes, who are at least as good as the two, back up to speed. That’s the balancing act right now.”

Horngacher speaks of a construction site that he currently has to work on. You could also say: from thin ice. It’s not just about the tour, which Prevc has already almost decided given his 35 point lead over the Austrian Jan Hörl – if he doesn’t fall or the wind blows away his last four jumps. It’s about the ski flying world championships in three weeks in Oberstdorf, where Horngacher needs four strong jumpers for the team competition. And it’s about the Olympic Games, which start at the beginning of February. Many discussions have therefore taken place between trainers and jumpers, including in Oberstdorf. This balancing act “currently costs a lot of energy and strength, it’s not easy. But we’re all pulling together here,” says Horngacher.

Geiger and Wellinger continue to lag behind, Paschke has no consistency. The trio, who are currently unable to find their feeling for flying for a variety of reasons, still continue on to Innsbruck. Geiger said on Thursday after jumping in Garmisch: “Of course you have doubts, but I have to go through that now, it just doesn’t help. Of course I’m thinking about the Olympics, but if I jump like I’m doing at the moment, then I don’t have a job there either.” Wellinger said that the Winter Games were still “very far away” for him.

Four German jumpers are allowed to go to the Olympic ski jumping competitions in Predazzo. So one of the quintet will be left out. Hoffmann and Raimund seem to be set given their current form, so it would be either Paschke, Wellinger or Geiger. “It will be a long road, probably with one or two setbacks,” said Horngacher, with a view to giving the ailing trio security again on the hill and in the air: “The process is very intensive.” On the other hand, he can consider himself lucky to have two professionals in Raimund and Hoffmann who jumped out of each other’s shadow late but in good time.

Horngacher described Hoffmann, who was sitting next to him in the fireplace room on Friday, as a “good athlete, but who is brutally ambitious. You don’t notice that in him. And he can also get really angry, really angry, we’ve already experienced that. But in his own way. His mood swings are in the millimeter range.” The 28-year-old is currently flying with a mighty upswing, and his ambition can be seen in a single sentence: “Whether it is second, third, fourth or fifth place on the tour is irrelevant,” said Hoffmann – only first place counts.

Hoffmann was still relaxing in the sauna on Thursday, Raimund is looking forward to Innsbruck, the Bergisel, his favorite ski jump. Raimund will continue to give Hoffmann the energy and relaxedness that he himself radiates. And Hoffmann will always slow Raimund down. The duo complement each other almost perfectly in this respect. The trio around Geiger, Wellinger and Paschke will continue to try to stabilize their flight system. But everything remains a balancing act, especially on the windswept Bergisel. But it’s very similar there to the Riessersee. Sometimes all it takes is a little push to come together as a team.