Germany fails on time for the tour
That raises questions
01/06/2025 – 12:16 p.mReading time: 3 minutes
No matter how well the season goes, the DSV Eagles will jump right in time for the Four Hills Tournament. That raises questions.
The 73rd Four Hills Tournament hasn’t even ended yet, but it’s already clear: a German victory at the prestigious event won’t happen this winter either. It’s been like this for a quarter of a century now. After Sven Hannawald’s great triumph in January 2002, the DSV Eagles came away empty-handed for the 23rd time in a row.
A never-ending lack of victory that raises questions. As in previous years, the German team had at least one jumper in its ranks with a realistic chance of winning.
Whether Andreas Wellinger (tournament runner-up last year and in 2018), Karl Geiger (third in 2020, second in 2021), Markus Eisenbichler (second in 2019) or Pius Paschke, who started the season so strongly. Several DSV eagles had promising starting positions and were sometimes in contention for victory, but the big jump was never achieved.
The renewed disappointment this year is particularly great. Before the tour, Paschke dominated the World Cup, won five of ten competitions and traveled to the tour in the yellow jersey of the World Cup leader. But since then he hasn’t even been seen on the podium. There was also no sign of Andreas Wellinger, who triumphed in Ruka, Finland at the beginning of December. Neither did Karl Geiger, who also jumped onto the podium in Ruka once this season.
Suddenly the neighbors from Austria, who have been waiting for a tour winner for ten years, are flying away from the competition. Stefan Kraft, Jan Hörl and Daniel Tschofenig will decide on the overall victory on Monday in Bischofshofen (from 4.30 p.m. in the t-online live ticker). A frightening dominance that is viewed with suspicion in some places.
The German national coach Stefan Horngacher is hardly interested in the debate about a possible material advantage among his compatriots: “You don’t have to look for things from other teams, we have enough to do with ourselves.”
The frustration in the DSV camp is great. Above all with Horngacher, who is already making his sixth unsuccessful attempt at a tour as national coach. After the jumping in Innsbruck, when it was practically certain that another year would pass without a German winner, the Tyrolean gave a wide berth to the interview zone in the run-out of the Bergisel ski jump – a highly unusual occurrence in ski jumping. Even in the days before, the head coach sometimes seemed tight-lipped and annoyed by the constant questions about the lull that had lasted for over two decades.
When Horngacher did speak, he gritted his teeth and stated: “The tour is over, you have to accept and respect that. We wanted to catch up, but unfortunately we didn’t quite succeed. We tried everything. It actually backfired.” Paschke only finished eighth in Innsbruck and is sixth in the overall standings. A consistently disappointing performance, on Bergisel and also in the overall ranking.
Today’s ARD expert Sven Hannawald provides an explanation for this. In terms of material and training, the German jumpers are at the highest level, he says. But there is a problem with the mentality. “At the beginning of the season there is a certain lightness. Before the tour it becomes firmer, it feels heavier. They can’t manage this trend and change it,” diagnoses the 50-year-old: “The Austrians let the tour happen to them, take photos everywhere, give interviews.”
So a lack of coolness and relaxedness. The German jumpers cannot and do not want to contradict this. “The Austrians are enjoying it at the moment. They have an extreme flow – like I did a few weeks ago,” noted Paschke. “Everyone is the maker of his own happiness.”
And then the 34-year-old said another sentence that has been true for the DSV Adler for two decades: “Something was missing again.” This time even more than a little.