What was recently rumored for a few weeks is now official: Thomas Thurnbichler leaves his post as head coach of the Polish ski jumper at the end of the season. His term of office comes to an end one year before the end of the contract.
Ski jumping also wrote big headlines at the World Cup final in Planica. After the Polish Ski Association was in charge of a press conference at short notice, it is now clear: Thomas Thurnbichler will only be head coach of the Polish ski jumper for three days.
He and association president Adam Małysz in the Poland team hotel in Kranjska Gora announced this. In his three -minute statement, Thurnbichler expressed that he was “for several weeks” in an exchange with the top of the association, “because I felt that I didn’t want to and cannot go on like this.”
He made Małysz and his colleagues proposals for changes in cooperation, “but after they were not accepted, it was clear to both sides that it would not go on. But with this decision I am fine,” said the Austrian, whose contract continued until spring 2026.
After the end of the season, the head coach will take over his previous assistant Maciej Maciusiak, who has never worked as head coach in the World Cup. “He is the only one that I trust to be able to deal with this situation and the pressure,” said his still boss.
Ski jumping: Association “In the Zwickmühle”
However, the association does not want to let the 35-year-old go completely: he was made an offer to take over the junior team and thus introduce the next generation of Springer to the top of the world.
Thurnbichler himself did not rule out a whereabouts: “This is a good offer, I will think about it in the next few weeks.” Already the day before he had in conversation with sport.de emphasized how important this task would be for the Polish ski jumping: “The ski association is in the Zwickmühle. You have to put the whole focus and energy and also the financial in the offspring. But at the same time it is also difficult to drop the others, because you need them. It is soon Olympic season and it is not so easy to really concentrate on the boys.”
The potential is in any case, the soon-to-be trainer continued: “There is already a pool of athletes who can learn things with a highly professional work.” For this reason, he does not believe in a decline of Polish ski jumping if “if the association is now together and everyone starts working in the same direction. Because that is currently not the case.”
Thurnbichler: “Very difficult task, no matter who trainer is”
However, he was “very grateful” for the chance to work as a chief coach for the first time in his young coaching career, as a chief coach, “he emphasized at the press conference. While he left it after only five minutes early, he was sport.de opposite.
He did not hide Thurnbichler that he had imagined the collaboration differently. “In the end, the board opens up the last decisions and interferes a lot. Much more than in all other associations,” he explained and criticized it very openly: “You don’t really notice a lot of support. It is not that people work against you, but you don’t feel that they will insert you.”
This is exactly what he had already made no secret of Polish media. “Even if it was not always nice,” he stood up after every competition of the press and gave insights into his work, “because it is important and people should know what the difficulties are.”
However, his stand was difficult from the start because the dismissal of his Czech predecessor Michal Doležal was not well received by the athletes. “The jumpers were 100 percent behind him, but the association still made the decision. And then it was difficult for me to gain great trust,” he said.
That Kamil Stoch, who is the greatest ski jumping hero in Poland alongside Adam Małysz, hired that Michal Doležal as a private coach and separated from Thurnbichler’s training group, “did not make things any easier. But it was understandable to me. This was not a good prerequisite in connection with an association that also had a bit of internal power.”
Thomas Thurnbichler seemed all the more relieved that these quarrels now have an end to (premature) end. In conversation with sport.de If he was still determined to “stay in ski jumping, even if it doesn’t go on in Poland. I also have offers from other people or nations”, so the question of his future will probably be answered promptly.