Severin Freund has ended his ski jumping career. In Martin Schmitt, team Olympic champion from Salt Lake City, a long-time companion at DSV now recalls the achievements of the 33-year-old.
Severin Freund’s decision to no longer want to jump off the ski jumps of this world still reverberates days after his last World Cup competition. At first, his former coach Werner Schuster spoke highly of the ski jumper’s achievements.
According to the ex-national coach, Freund was a pioneer and role model for many of his DSV colleagues. “Everyone has benefited from him,” said Schuster on “Eurosport”.
Ex-ski jumper Martin Schmitt also pointed out “tz“Now the abilities of Severin Freund come out. Schmitt remembers above all a jump in Oslo in 2011, which is symbolic. “We were also good in the race on the large hill, but then because of the wind after the first passage aborted. I saw how Severin came in as a younger jumper and how he fought his way up step by step, how analytical he was and how he developed incredibly as a jumper.”
Schmitt: Training comparison with Geiger shows differences
This was “not so predictable”, said the 44-year-old. “Especially in terms of flight technology, he has gained brutal control and security. In the past, when it came to the feeling of flying, it was always said: ‘Either you have it, or you don’t have it.’ Severin, on the other hand, has shown that this is a technical element that can be learned. This has taken him to a whole new level.”
Schmitt regrets the decision of his longtime DSV colleague, but at the same time he can understand it. “The motivation and the goals for the next few years were just such that he couldn’t pull himself together to do everything again. That shows that deep down he has the feeling that it’s going to be very difficult, to take another big step close.”
Especially in training with Karl Geiger, who just barely missed winning the big crystal globe this year and finished second in the World Cup, Severin Freund noticed “how much has to fit together so that he can even get close to him. He will have felt that it’s not going to be that easy.”