Katharina Althaus is one of the best in the world, this winter too. She jumped to six individual victories up to this World Championship. She brought her stylistic skills closer to the dominating Austrian jumper Eva Pinkelnig, she now lies flat in the air and can land softly. But all of that is (almost) nothing, because she has been chasing one goal for almost eight years since becoming the best German jumper: a big individual title.
The chasing is over now. Althaus became world champion on Thursday evening in Planica. The ease at the decisive moment, which she always lacked in her second places at championships and the Olympics, suddenly no longer seemed to be a problem. This time she was ahead of her most recently superior competitor Pinkelnig, the outstanding jumper of the recent past. Norway’s Anna Odine Ström was third, Selina Freitag was fourth, she was a good five points short of the podium.
Already that trial jump, the lead at the start, this time shortly after sunset, was the best for her. Althaus jumped out and sailed down to the valley with ease and a considerable lead. Maybe this jump was a kind of calming pill: knowing that this hill, this inrun, its radius, the point of the optimal take-off is controllable, all this should have given Althaus the decisive confidence in the evening.
The first round was a bit sobering again, Althaus couldn’t improve significantly, but held her position, while Pinkelnig obviously had problems with the hill. She tumbled a bit, but that’s exactly what made this competition of the women jumpers a passable early-evening thriller. Because in the final round, Pinkelnig presented, and the Austrian, anything but a quiet athlete, had announced that she would “scream everything together” in a long jump in the final – and yes, it got loud.
Stylistically flawless – and far: Katharina Althaus fulfills her dream of winning a big competition at the World Championships in Planica.
(Photo: Jure Makovec/AFP)
But two were still up, one of them Althaus, who has a different temperament. This time she trusted her flying skills and took the lead. Now she had to wait for the best of the first round. Ström landed right on the green line of the leaders, whereupon Althaus had to wait until the decision was official: Gold for the woman from Oberstdorf, 2.2 points ahead of Pinkelnig.
Althaus fell to his knees and cried her hard-earned tears of joy. For you and the rest of the team, this could now be a successful World Cup: the women’s team around Althaus, Freitag, Anna Rupprecht and Luisa Görlich is now on the up. In addition, Althaus’s large hill, which will only be used next week, is even better. And for the entire DSV team, it shouldn’t do any harm if there isn’t a long wait for a win because gold is already on the first evening.