Olympia 2022 – Katharina Althaus draws a positive conclusion despite the drama

The Olympic victory was so tangible for Katharina Althaus. So close!

Euphorically, her teammates sprinted towards her and hugged the Allgäu woman warmly. But then the result appeared on the scoreboard: Althaus fell to his knees, rested his head on his hands, and tears welled up in his eyes. A drama.

After a strong first jump of 105.5 m, Althaus was still in the lead before she landed at 94.0 m in the second round.

The excitement: Despite the strong wind, she got the green light for the second jump. “It was insane up there,” admitted Althaus on the Eurosport microphone to. “It wasn’t the easiest competition, but I made two very good jumps.”

She was spot on with this self-assessment and drew a positive conclusion in the end. “I was angry and happy at the same time. In the end I’m just happy with silver. That’s for my family and my friend, I wouldn’t be here without them,” said Althaus after the first German medal in Beijing.

After all, Althaus also wins the hearts

After her emotional outburst, Althaus quickly regained her composure and congratulated the victorious competitor. She jumped onto the podium with a mighty whoop of joy, and the woman from Oberstdorf celebrated her silver medal like gold. She definitely won hearts.

“She was perfectly prepared, did a great job. It was a higher power that prevented it – she knows that and it’s not so easy to cope with at first,” commented Eurosport expert Werner Schuster.

In the meantime, Sven Hannawald was literally getting angry on “ARD”. “One should have waited for better conditions,” he criticized.

Above all, the ski jumping legend complained that Althaus was allowed to jump at all in difficult wind conditions – Miran Tepes, of all people, a Slovenian, made the decision. “If you don’t wait half a minute, I get sour burping,” said Hannawald clearly.

But Althaus didn’t want to wash dirty laundry. “Of course they could have waited. I didn’t have the best wind, not the best luck. But that’s just part of ski jumping,” she said.

In 2018, Althaus was still clearly behind Maren Lundby. Because the Norwegian is currently on a break and top favorite Marita Kramer (Austria) tested positive for Corona, the door to Olympic victory was wide open. But it was Bogataj who seized the opportunity. Curious: the 26-year-old has not yet celebrated a single victory in the World Cup.

Next chance follows Monday

Althaus thus missed a repeat of the triumph of Carina Vogt, who had won gold at the premiere in 2014 and was crossing her fingers on her 30th birthday from home.

But at the third women’s ski jumping event in Olympic history, a German was on the podium for the third time. Althaus is also the first woman to win two Olympic medals.

In the mixed competition, which was held for the first time, Althaus has her second, albeit last, medal chance of the games on Monday. The chances are good: Germany has recently won gold four times in a row at the World Championships.

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