They could have quarreled, especially Althaus himself. In the first round, the 25-year-old showed a great jump, kept the strong Slovenians in check and also showed that she can handle being the favorite quite well.
The jump in the second round was also good, but it was missing 2.2 points, the equivalent of a little more than one meter. That’s not much – and it gets even less when you know about the lousy wind conditions.
Clear Hannawald criticism
Sports show expert Sven Hannawald therefore expressed clear criticism, in his opinion the jury should not have sent Althaus on the track, but had to wait a moment. Half a minute, maybe a whole minute and according to Hannawald it would have been gold.
It is particularly piquant that a Slovene was responsible for this in Miran Tepes. An old driver, but also one who had often been criticized when it came to tricky decisions. In the end, Althaus didn’t win – but Ursa Bogataj, a Slovenian.
“Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re unlucky”
Althaus himself does not want to bother with such speculations, they would probably only spoil her mood: “It’s just part of our sport. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re unlucky.”
And somehow it’s clear what the outcome of Katharina Althaus is, she attracts silver like a magnet. Twice when I was young, then Olympic silver in Pyeongchang 2018 and World Championship silver in Seefeld 2019 and now again.
silver and confetti
Althaus admits: “At first I thought to myself: No, really? Silver again? But the second time I thought, not many can claim to have won silver twice at the Olympic Games.” That’s right. And this time there was a confetti cannon on top of that.