Kamil Stoch has ended his legendary ski jumping career. According to the Polish winter sports icon, it wasn’t just the victories that really pushed him forward.
“‘Legend,’ ‘champion,’ ‘GOAT.’
The 38-year-old explained: “It lies in the daily work, in the persistence and the belief in the impossible. It lies in the people whose support I feel every single day. It lies in the moments when things didn’t go my way. When I had to make the run-up even though hardly anyone was waiting for the next jump.”
Legendary career in ski jumping
With three Olympic victories, two world championship titles, three victories in the Four Hills Tournament and two triumphs in the overall World Cup, Stoch is one of the great ski jumpers in history.
But the exceptional Polish athlete says: “It wasn’t the victories that showed me how much I can endure or how much strength I find to try again. It wasn’t the victories that helped you see me as a human being.”
“May this journey, this fight for goals and dreams, without any guarantee of victory, be a greater source of inspiration than the image of a champion ‘who knew when it was time to leave the stage’,” philosophized the ski jumping legend.
Stoch officially said goodbye to the big stage last weekend during ski flying in Planica. In his last competition he finished 30th. The end of his career had already been clear since last summer.
