The evening was over for Karl Geiger after the first round. As an athlete you still want to keep fighting, especially at the Olympics – but how should that work now? Already at 96 meters the German put on his skis when jumping off the normal hill in Zhangjiakou, which was only 21st place according to the points classification. His arms dangled limply down Geiger’s body, then he unbuckled his skis. A look of disillusionment on his face. And emptiness.
This jump seemed like a mistake in Karl Geiger’s system. Normally, the 28-year-old has a feeling for the requirements of a new environment. But in China he felt nothing.
As a World Cup leader, Geiger had traveled to the Olympics, and that’s something German ski jumpers rarely manage to do: most recently, it was Jens Weißflog who was able to stay true to his form in 1984, winning gold on the normal hill in Sarajevo, plus silver on the large. Geiger experienced his start in these games in a completely different way: The dream of a medal turned into 15th place, the fight for the Olympic victory took place completely without German influences. Japan’s Ryoyu Kobayashi celebrated this triumph after winning the Four Hills Tournament, Manuel Fettner from Austria secured silver ahead of Poland’s Dawid Kubacki. “I did it with full determination, but I failed,” said Geiger, “I don’t know how many times I was worse this season. It’s very sobering.” Last year he managed to win the normal hill at the World Championships in Oberstdorf.
In the second round in China, Geiger managed to increase to 99 meters, but he wasn’t able to save much. “The second didn’t feel so wrong at the top,” he said on ZDF, “but somehow it doesn’t fly away that much. I don’t know exactly why.” He has nothing to blame himself for, but Geiger also said. The sentence was like a mantra that evening, it also came from his colleagues: from Markus Eisenbichler, who missed the second round in 31st place, from Constantin Schmid as the best German in eleventh place and from Stefan Leyhe in 24th place what happens, you don’t need to get into it,” said Eisenbichler. You could tell that they wanted to finish with this small ski jump as soon as possible.
What exactly is wrong with her, they would like to know for themselves. Training jump after training jump was not progressing for Geiger, ninth place in the qualification had already been the highest of feelings. “The fact that none of six jumps succeeds at all, although I was actually in good shape, annoys me incredibly,” he said, but quickly switched to fight mode, after all, he wanted this Olympic medal. “It’s going to be a challenge now,” he said.
“It would have had to be a miracle,” says national coach Horngacher
It was because of the conditions that evening. As the competition progressed, the inrun hatch was lowered further and further. Whoever jumped first could get up to higher speeds to build up a reasonable jump, which is very noticeable on a smaller hill. The points could hardly make up for that, and Halvor Egner Granerud and Marius Lindvik of Norway – number three and fourth in the World Cup – also experienced a frustrating evening. The only one who again showed his skills unimpressed by this was Kobayashi: With jumps of 104.5 and 99.5 meters he picked up another gem for his trophy cabinet.
While Katharina Althaus was able to celebrate silver on Saturday, the mood in the German men’s team is now completely different than it was four years ago: Andreas Wellinger had provided for boisterous hours in the German house with the Olympic victory on the normal hill. “The conclusion is not good because we didn’t jump for the medal,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher in Zhangjiakou, “that was a bit foreseeable. It would have had to be a miracle.”
The design of the magnificent building, which surrounds the hills, is reminiscent of a Chinese talisman – and the Germans will need luck on Monday. The mixed team competition is coming up, Germany had recently won the world title four times in a row, but the most recent experiences have to be digested first. Selina Freitag, Althaus, Geiger and Constantin Schmid were nominated instead of Eisenbichler. “It seems that this is where he does almost best,” said Horngacher. In any case, Schmid also had the quote of the day ready: Jumping at full risk like on Saturday is “a bit like with cryptocurrencies: it either shoots up or down”.