On January 6, 2002, Sven Hannawald wrote a piece of ski jumping history at the Four Hills Tournament. After 49 years of this prestigious competition, he achieved a novelty with his fourth victory in the fourth competition.
Today (5.30 p.m. / ARD and Eurosport), March 1, 2023, Katharina Althaus could also secure an entry in the history book: If she also wins the individual on the large hill at the World Championships in Planica, she would be in almost 100 years of history Nordic World Ski Championships, the first to win four ski jumping gold medals at a World Championship.
Strong qualification
The 26-year-old from the Allgäu already demonstrated her class with a 129-meter jump and victory in the qualification. “I know the hill here. I like it much better than the small one. It went really well from the first jump. I’m happy,” said favorite Althaus in the valley of the hills. She wanted to “take the momentum with her”.
The fact that the quadruple success has not been achieved so far was not only due to the athletes, but also to the few chances that there were at all. The women have only had four competitions since 2021. For the men there were two individual and two team competitions each in 2001, 2005 and 2011, and since 2013 there have been two individual competitions, one team competition and the mixed competition with two women and two men each. The Austrians Gregor Schlierenzauer and Thomas Morgenstern (each in 2011) and Markus Eisenbichler (2019) each won gold three times, but so far it has never been enough for four titles.
