The women’s Ski Jumping World Cups will take place in Sapporo and Yamagata over the next two weekends. The German Anna Rupprecht hopes for an increase in performance in Japan, as she writes in her sport.de column.
The Airbus of Japan Airlines rolls to take-off, takes off and makes a long curve over Frankfurt’s Sachsenhausen district. While we’re probably drinking Äppelwoi right now, we’re on our way to the country whose inhabitants enjoy sake, the whitish-cloudy brew made from polished rice that Germans like to misleadingly call rice wine. I quickly end my mental digression about drinking habits in the countries of the world and get in the mood for the ten-hour direct flight to Tokyo.
Looking back makes you happy. The New Year’s tour in Slovenia and Austria brought me a good deal further. I am very satisfied with the placements 15,12,7 and 5 in the individual competitions and a 7th place in the overall ranking. The jump analysis also shows further potential; I often couldn’t make the takeoff for the second flight as well as it could have and I often missed points by landing without telemarking.
Looking ahead, this means: if you work consistently on both sources of error, you should be able to do better in Japan at the two competition sites in Sapporo and Yamagata.
The jumbo is now at cruising altitude and we have long since left German airspace. The joy of the competitions in Japan, after two years of a forced break due to Covid, is at the same time the joy of the Japanese people and their culture.
In my imagination, with my eyes closed, I am already walking through the maze of streets in Tokyo, amidst the glowing neon signs of the snack bars that, instead of bratwurst and meat loaf, already offer noodle soup and miso for breakfast, also a soup with the most varied of ingredients, depending on the season, such as spinach and pumpkin to okra to fried tofu and seaweed.
Left-hand traffic and merrily beeping traffic lights complete the daily picture in Japanese cities, which quickly leads to sensory overload for us Europeans and which the Japanese fill with great composure, discipline and calm. That in turn builds a bridge to the competitions here in Japan, which are all always top-organized.
After a few hours of sleep, I wake up in time for the approach to land. I’m thinking about my jumps again, going through the analyzes of the last few days, remembering the jumps in the second rounds. As the gears extend and we pierce the cloud cover, I rehearse my post-ski jump landing, ending in a well-placed telemark as the pilot touches down very gently.
Two World Cups in Japan are ahead of me. I would like to see more top ten placements here so that on the day of departure I can say: Big in Japan!
Best regards
Anna Ruprecht