Of all people, local hero Kamil Stoch surprisingly failed to qualify at the Ski Jumping World Cup in Wisla, Poland on Friday – and is puzzling over the reasons.
The three-time Olympic champion and three-time winner of the Four Hills Tournament only achieved 118.5 meters in his qualifying jump on the Adam Malysz ski jump. As 51st in the ranking, Stoch is not allowed to fight for World Cup points in the first competition on Saturday.
“That seemed strange to me too,” the 38-year-old ski jumping superstar explained to journalists after his botched attempt. In training in Wisla, Stoch had previously flown at 122 and 125.5 meters, which meant 31st and 30th place respectively.
“I don’t really know what happened,” Stoch puzzled after qualifying. “When I went off the jump after the jump, I thought about it, but I can’t say anything about it. Today I had a lot of difficulty getting into the jump and finding the rhythm of the jump. This led to me lacking any energy during the jumps.”
Only on Sunday will Stoch have the chance to make amends in front of his home crowd. “I won’t analyze it for long. The last few weeks have been very intense,” he emphasized. “It is what it is. I can’t change it. I can only accept it and move forward.”
Before the season, Stoch announced that he would end his career next spring. So far this winter he has collected 73 points, which means 16th place in the overall World Cup.
Ski jumping: Karl Geiger also experiences a fiasco
In addition to Stoch, Karl Geiger also experienced a fiasco in the qualifying in Wisla. The former ski flying world champion failed as 56th of the 69 participants.
This means that Geiger will also not be at the start of the top 50 competition on Saturday; his best result of the season so far is 23rd place in Lillehammer.
Andreas Wellinger also disappointed in Wisla as 43rd. Things went better for the DSV Adler Pius Paschke (7th), Philipp Raimund (9th) and Felix Hoffmann (11th).
The winner of the qualification was the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi with a jump of 133.0 m.