Vierschanzetournee recap: 7 times Austria
Vierschanzetournee recap: 7 times Austria, as Stefan Kraft is crowned as the new 4HT champion,
Fairall and Ammann suffered awful crashes.
Hello everyone and welcome back to a new issue of At The Hills, your weekly online magazine about ski jumping. Today we want to talk about how a consistent Austria is a constant domi(nation), when it comes to the Four-Hills Tournament.
Back in the 50’ a great movie was released, The Magnificent Seven, is that the case to call, these past seven years, for the Austrian ski jumping team? I guess so. Seventh time Austria: Wolfgang Loitzl 2008/9 Andreas Kofler 2009/10 Thomas Morgenstern 2010/11 Gregor Schlierenzauer 2011/12 Gregor Schlierenzauer 2012/13 Thomas Diethart 2013/14 Stefan Kraft 2014/15
It's been now the 7th year in a row, für die Österreicher, that they left their mark on this event, in the most important ski jumping appointment of the season. Anyone has dreamed to win it, -at least once in their careers- to win this important tournament of the season. Simon Ammann, who is second to none, when it comes to important trophies won, is one of the few who hasn't managed (yet) to win the 4HT. This is why he decided to carry on with his ski jumping career this year.
But there's not like an Austrian, to ruin everyone else dreams, to become the Four-Hills Tournament champion, and this year was Stefan Kraft year.
The 21 year-old has succeeded to his teammate Thomas Diethart, pleasant surprise of the past season. Kraft has won this year tournament by finishing 6 points (he previously had an advantage of 21pts) ahead of his team and roommate, Michael Hayboeck, whoh is the current overall world cup leader.
Unfortunately the tournament this year has also "given" us, as if we want to call it, several falls, the ugliest one happened to American Nick Fairall on Monday January 5. The American ski jumper was then taken to the hospital, where he had to undergo spine surgery because, after for a short while, he couldn't feel his legs.
The second, is that one that happened to Simon Ammann on Tuesday January 6, when the Swiss -8th after the first round-, crashed during the landing, slamming his face in the snow. He briefly lost consciousness. Ammann was also taken to hospital, where he slowly regained consciousness, but now will need rest, as reported on January 7, 2015 by the Swiss team press officer Christian Stahl.
The safety issue in ski jumping remains. Since the first race of the new season in Klingenthal to Bischofshofen, we've witnessed the number of the falls growing to 12 (Ammann 2x, Fairall 2x, Alexander, Ito, Justin, Kubacki, Wellinger, Lanisek, Sjoen, Kobayashi). In ski jumping, honestly, this is already a quite high number, if we think that we are only at the beginning of the month of January, and the winter season, will end at the end of March in Planica.
The question that we all continue to ask ourselves is always the same: Will the FIS take some kind of precautions, that will benefit the sake of the athletes, and not the show? So that also the ski jumpers can compete in a much more stable state of mind? We want to bring to you guys, the words that Thomas Morgenstern said, in an interview done with Eurosport.
"Surely the fear is a big taboo in the ski jumping circuit. Nobody talks about it, but having experienced what I experienced, I think does not make sense to say, "Hey look at me, I'm a tough guy, I do not care about it." Ski jumping is a dangerous sport, and it is normal that accidents can happen. Fear is not something you can hide. You cannot pretend that it doesn't exist and then say, I will not have fear anymore, because it will always be present. You'll have to learn to live with the feeling of being afraid. The reality is that I escaped death, how can I not be afraid? "
by Consuelo Conte
