After degradation
Ski jumper returns to the World Cup team
December 16, 2025 – 9:29 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
In ski jumping, little things decide on success. An Austrian was recently eliminated from the World Cup, but he is returning to the tour.
It’s a world in which everyone has to deliver and little things decide whether something is very good or not so good. The Austrian ski jumper Maximilian Ortner also felt this recently. Because ÖSV head coach Andreas Widhölzl initially left him out of the squad for the World Cup. But now Ortner has made an impressive comeback and is returning to the World Cup.
How exactly? After his demotion, the 23-year-old had to prove himself in the Continental Cup. In the second highest ski jumping competition, Ortner came second on Saturday and was able to repeat this feat on Sunday. In doing so, he secured the Austrians an additional starting place for the Four Hills Tournament.
And you can take part in the tour yourself. This starts on December 28th in Oberstdorf and then traditionally takes place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen. Just a month later, the Winter Olympics will start in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Ortner was one of the high-flyers last season and now had to experience how quickly the form in ski jumping can change. A fate that German top performers such as Karl Geiger and Andreas Wellinger are currently struggling with. Geiger recently dropped out of the World Cup to get back on track, and Wellinger did the same. Both want to perform at the 2026 Olympics.
Wellinger said about the step before the tour: “My performance is simply bad. I have to find something to make it easy again. I can’t manage to get consistency, to bring energy along the edge.” Wellinger became Olympic champion in 2018 and was actually one of the hopefuls this season.
Former national coach Werner Schuster said as an expert at “Eurosport”: “It’s hard to watch. It hurts my soul. He’s a great athlete.” Sven Hannawald also knows the difficulties of his sport. However, he recently remarked on ARD: “That’s the beauty of ski jumping, that it can click from one jump to the next.”