Pius Paschke was actually always a man of the second rank in ski jumping. It wasn’t just in terms of performance that the Bavarian was often significantly behind teammates like Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler.
Even in public and in interviews, Paschke usually didn’t play a big role. That all suddenly changed in Ruka, Finland.
When he took second place behind Austria’s high-flyer Stefan Kraft with jumps of 142 and 142.5 meters, Paschke was the center of attention. “That means a lot to me. That was really cool. I really like the jump. The fact that I got second place is really cool,” said the 33-year-old from Kiefersfelden, who actually still has his podium finish at an advanced age as a professional athlete. premiered in the World Cup. Paschke was part of the world champion team in 2021 and part of the silver team at the Ski Flying World Championships in 2020.
But as an individual athlete he had not yet achieved any great success. After finishing second behind Kraft, he explicitly thanked his sports psychologist in the Finnish flake vortex, who had prepared him for situations like those in the second round. But it wasn’t just Paschke who was convincing, Stephan Leyhe, Andreas Wellinger and Philipp Raimund were also among the world’s best in third, fourth and seventh place.
“Nobody could have expected that we would be so far ahead. That was just the start. The season is long,” said Paschke. The German team is considered promising this winter. For former world champion Markus Eisenbichler, surprisingly, it wasn’t enough for a place in the squad.