It’s been ten years since Simon Ammann announced his retirement from ski jumping. But the Swiss is still in the World Cup. The others consider quitting, but the 42-year-old simply lets himself go.
Maybe this is Simon Ammann’s final, final career goal, his master plan: to fool everyone forever and just keep flying forever. A final magic trick that would suit the Swiss, who once achieved world sporting fame as the Harry Potter of ski jumping.
The coming weeks will mark the tenth anniversary of “Simi’s” first declaration of resignation. And yet the now 42-year-old is still there and will start at the home World Cup in Engelberg on Friday, as he has always done for a quarter of a century.
In 2002, the resemblance to Harry Potter became his nickname.
(Foto: picture-alliance / Sven Simon)
“What if he just keeps going forever?” Swiss radio asked half-jokingly in 2018. And Ammann just carries on, half seriously. “To put it bluntly,” says the double Olympic champion from 2002 and 2010, “I am the only amateur athlete in the World Cup.” And even in his 26th season, the two-time hobby pilot – ski jumping and airplane pilot – regularly finishes in the points.
Farewell is like Rolling Stones
And even if not, no one would be angry with the most iconic Swiss athlete next to Roger Federer, who is six weeks younger and also retired late. For a long time, Ammann seemed untouchable. The passionate rock fan in his secondary life – “a ski jumper just doesn’t look like enough of a rocker in his costume – but of course we are at heart” – succeeds as a sporty version of the Rolling Stones. Her farewell tour is also dragging on. And they never called it that.
However, Ammann did this for the first time in early 2014, when he announced after the Olympic defeat in Sochi that he would “99 percent no longer be there” in Pyeongchang. And he did, promising his wife before the 2018 Games that it was really over. Since then, obituaries of Ammann’s sporting achievements have been published every year and the end of his career has been written about.
Since then, Ammann has been making fun of it, only half-heartedly denying it, “probably” is his favorite word, be it his last Four Hills Tournament, his last World Cup or his last Winter Games. And then he was there again, at the 2019 World Cup, 2021, 2023, at the 2022 Olympic Games. And it would hardly be surprising if he was there again, at the 2025 World Cup, at the 2026 Olympic Games.
“I’ve reached a point where I can take care of day-to-day business,” Ammann told SID 2021 in the middle of his traditionally last season: “I don’t even think about the macro, the really big thing.” It is much nicer when everyone else thinks of him.
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2023-12-15 17:24:19
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