The new World Cup season starts next weekend for ski jumpers. In one of his sport.de columns, Karl Geiger reports on the complicated packing for the small Scandinavian rally.
The door cracks open almost inaudibly and a brown, bushy tail appears, wiggling back and forth. I had retreated to the bedroom with my packing list to prepare my suitcase for the first days of the fresh World Cup winter when Luisa tried to undermine the serious suggestion that I needed an hour of rest to pack with a skillful charm offensive.
There are turbulent days ahead of me. Compared to the last few years, in which we usually had separate arrivals and departures for each World Cup, the familiar processes with the short islands of peace at home are changing. A small Scandinavian rally lies ahead of us, in which we will complete qualifications and competitions in Norway, Sweden and Finland within thirteen days: the World Cups in Lillehammer, Falun and Kuusamo are coming up and will cost the athletes a lot of strength and energy beyond the jumps.
The days off will be used for travel: by bus from Lillehammer to Falun, and by plane to Finland, before returning to the families.
Thirteen days in Scandinavia at this time of year need to be planned in terms of clothing, as you can encounter anything from minus 20 degrees to 3 degrees of drizzle.
As I’ve laid out the first stack of different textiles on the bed and then weighed up the size of the suitcase, the bushy tail appears in the crack in the door, which I know only too well and at the end of which I can see my daughter’s little hand.
Luisa obviously finds it difficult to give me this one hour in which I mentally vacillate from long to thin underpants, from sweaters of different thicknesses to rain jackets, and without further ado offers to pack Nordi the squirrel, one of her favorite stuffed animals, once the mascot of the Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf.
A special kind of token of love that I appreciate, and also with great symbolic power, the squirrel’s tail stands functionally for balancing and controlling the jumps from tree to tree, i.e. for the components that I also need for my jumps.
With the assurance that this offer will be taken into account in all packing considerations and that I will be available again more quickly if I have a little time for myself, the gap in the door closes again. A little of everything, but always a little. I choose a wide range of thin and thick items, but I also have to allow space for the handwashing detergent. Energy bars are now inserted between the cracks of the things and the suitcase only closes with difficulty.
The World Cup adventure is entering a new round, even if Nordi would rather stay with Luisa this time.
Kind regards
Karl Geiger