In the dense snow flurry of Planica, Germany's ski jumping quartet hugged each other and roared as loudly as possible.
Led by the outstanding Katharina Althaus and the cool final jumper Andreas Wellinger, the mixed team crowned an almost surreal weekend with another world championship title, where almost everything worked out. "Andi's last jump was outstanding. He did a really great job. Katha made a jump here, it was tremendous. Unbelievable, we defended the title," said national coach Stefan Horngacher. Wellinger, Althaus, Karl Geiger and Selina Freitag proudly presented the black, red and gold flag after the next coup.
Violinist: "That's the greatest thing"
"We've almost reached our goal," said Horngacher, who experienced the next highlight one day after individual silver for Wellinger and bronze for Geiger. The mixed lasted almost two and a half hours and was a real game of patience with the changing wind and adverse weather. While the children in the audience even started a snowball fight because of the many breaks, blankets were handed to the athletes upstairs. In the end everything went well for Germany. "Today it was a very tight box. It's really super cool that it worked," said Geiger on ZDF. "That's the biggest thing."
From a German point of view, the day before in the valley of the hills had already been perfect. Althaus, Freitag, Anna Rupprecht and Luisa Görlich confidently won the team competition on the normal hill ahead of Austria and Norway and thus ensured the next title for Althaus after individual gold. "We did a great job. We all kept our nerves, although we were all really shitty nervous," said Rupprecht.
Wellinger's title defense successful
While Germany's team victory in the women's was relatively clear and safe, the men's individual was a "millimetre jump", as national coach Horngacher said. But Wellinger and Geiger kept their nerve and once again achieved a kind of sporting resurrection at the right moment. The fact that the extrovert Pole Piotr Zyla was even stronger and defended his world championship title from Oberstdorf became almost a minor matter.
After very difficult years, Wellinger was grateful to return to the World Cup podium for the first time since 2017. "If I let it sink in, the medal will certainly have a very high priority because the last few years have been more bad than good or I've always gotten one on the sack," described the 2018 Olympic champion, who then quickly left the World elite slipped and was slowed down by injuries, crises and a corona infection immediately before the 2022 Olympics.
Resurrection after a bad Four Hills Tournament
With Geiger the case is different. The 30-year-old from the Allgäu was Germany's guarantor for years before he failed more and more this winter. On an unfortunate tour K.o. further setbacks followed in Innsbruck. Geiger even voluntarily sat out in the World Cup in favor of training. "It's quite a mental effort that I've done," Geiger said.
The ski jumpers made it from the bottom at the Four Hills Tournament to very high at the World Championships in seven weeks. "You noticed the pressure, especially after the tour we started to swim. For three or four weeks an incredible calm has returned," said Geiger. On Saturday and Sunday the calm was over, instead there was loud cheering in the picturesque valley of the Schanzen.
