Let's look back with a portrait: Thomas Diethart - last season's Four-Hills-Tournament winner
We are standing ahead of the start of the 63. edition of the prestigious Four-Hills-Tournament. Everything looks great in Oberstdorf, the first stop of the Vierschanzentournee, so it seems to be the right moment to remind you of the previous edition of this tournament, which was full of surprises and highest sport emotions.
Nobody expected how this edition of the Tournament would look like. We had a lot of favorites, with Austrians Gregor Schlierenzauer and Thomas Morgenstern on the lead, but the competitions were more surprising then we could have imagined.
As you all know the winner of the 62. Four-Hills-Tournament became Thomas Diethart. But it wasn't that obvious at the beginning. The 21-year-old Austrian found himself in the team just before the Tournament. He took part in the World-Cup competition in Engelberg, where he achieved top results in both competitions. Alexander Pointner, the head coach of the Austrian team at that time, believed in him and gave him a chance to perform in the Tournament. Diethart didn't disappoint. In the first competition on the Schattenbergschanze in Oberstdorf he turned out to be the best among his compatriots and jumped on the third place of the podium together with Peter Prevc. The winner became Simon Ammann, who is still missing the victory in the Tournament as one of the big goals in his career, and second place took experienced Anders Bardal.
After the competition the world media began to be interested in this young Austrian talent, as many people said, "from nowhere". It was true, because Thomas Diethart grew up in a village, 190 kilometers away from the nearest hill! His parents were doing their best to develop the talent of their son. Diethart managed to get to the prestigious Schigymnasium Stams, but for a long time he didn't achieve satisfactory results. After the first competition of the 4-Hills Diethart said: "I tried to do everything to stay calm - I did not think it would be functioning so well in the World-Cup. It's a great feeling to be on the podium in this competition, I can not express in words how I feel. The competition was very tough, the wind was often changing, but it was not a problem for me. I can not explain why I jump so well now, everything comes easy to me but I do not know why."
Also in the next competitions everything came easy to the 21-year-old jumper. He was the best in both trainings and qualification round and eventually won the New Year's competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with an 11-point advantage ahead of his teammate Thomas Morgenstern, who came back in great shape after his serious crash in Titisee-Neustadt. This time Simon Ammann had to be satisfied with the third place. Afterwards the winner said: "This is crazy. At this point, all I want, it becomes true. The atmosphere is extra motivation for me. I'm not doing anything special, except that I have great joy and fun of jumping".
Unfortunately, in Innsbruck jumpers had to struggle with hard wind conditions and eventually recognize the superiority of the weather. The competition ended after only one round and the winner surprisingly became Anssi Koivuranta, who won ahead of Simon Ammann and World-Cup leader Kamil Stoch. This time Diethart finished 5th. Everything had to settle in the final competition in Bischofshofen.
The pink plush piggy became a hallmark of Diethart, who sealed his victory in the Tournament by winning in Bischofshofen. The new shining star of skijumping beat all the favorites and became the new idol of the young jumpers, who noticed that everything is possible to reach.
Will the story of an unknown winner be repeated this year? One thing is certain, the 63rd Vierschanzentournee is sure to be an amazing and spectacular event!
- by Anna Sobol
