(dpa). When Jens Weißflog is watching his successors at the Four Hills Tournament on television these days, he does it with full devotion. “I’m really following it,” says the 56-year-old emphatically. The former exceptional ski jumper, whose fourth tour victory is celebrating its 25th anniversary today, can now put himself in the shoes of the flying performers who pursue their profession at the ski jump. However, Weißflog also knows another side of the Corona times: As a hotelier, he currently cannot do his job as usual. His hotel and restaurant in Oberwiesenthal have been closed since November 2nd.
So Weissflog doesn’t get bored. The 56-year-old manages things in the office, but the guests are missing. “December, January and February, including March: this is the time for us,” says the three-time Olympic champion. He particularly emphasizes the word “the”. “It’s like if the entire summer were omitted at the seaside resorts on the Baltic Sea.”
Unlike many former ski jumpers, Weißflog decided against a path as a trainer and long ago ended his work as a TV expert. The fact that nobody can sleep in his hotel hits Weissflog financially hard. “We’ll survive this,” he says fiercely, but without a loan it won’t work for him either. Weißflog describes the current situation in the other winter sports stronghold in the Ore Mountains as “unreal”. At a time “when you normally stand at the elevator for half an hour”, it is now deserted. That’s why he doesn’t want to complain. And he does not want to lead the popular discussion about why some are allowed to do their job more or less normally while others are restricted with regard to ski jumpers and himself and his hotel.
Instead, Weissflog, who was called “Flea vom Fichtelberg” because of his height, describes his perception of the athletes on television: “The jumpers go up to the bar with a mask. They go out of the gate below and get it A mask is enough. You can see that they are willing to do a lot the way it has to be at the moment. “
There were eleven years between Weißflog’s first tour victory and the last triumph in 1996. Weissflog doubts that a ski jumper like him or the Finn Janne Ahonen, who holds the record with five titles in the hill spectacle around the turn of the year, will triumph again as often. “It will be difficult for someone to win the tour four times again,” he says. “There is no longer a single dominator.” The sport is developing rapidly.
The German ski jumpers have been waiting for a tour victory for 19 years and the glorious appearance of Sven Hannawald. “Somehow there is a curse on it at the moment,” says Weißflog. That will probably not change this year either. PHOTO: DPA
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