The German team had a furious weekend at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica and easily topped the record from the home World Championships in Oberstdorf 2021 at halftime.
Led by the outstanding ski jumper Katharina Althaus, who could become the big star of this World Cup, the athletes of the German Ski Association (DSV) won six medals within 29 hours: four in ski jumping and two in Nordic combined. Gold in the women’s team and in mixed – each with Althaus – shone particularly well. In mixed, Norway and Slovenia had to admit defeat.
Four Hills Tournament seems forgotten
After bumpy preliminary results before the start of the World Championships there was still a tricky major event in the valley of the hills in Slovenia, but now all expectations have been fulfilled even before the first rest day. The result in Oberstdorf (six medals, two of them gold) has already been topped. A result like in Seefeld 2019, when there were six triumphs, suddenly seems realistic.
Andreas Wellinger and Karl Geiger also contributed to the strong record, who reported back on time seven weeks after the disastrous Four Hills Tournament and won silver and bronze in the World Championships behind Poland’s world champion Piotr Zyla. “We would have aimed for a medal. It’s unbelievable that we’re doing two now. The way we did it was almost world champion,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher.
Ski jumping team lives up to the role of favourites
24 hours later it was really world champion. The mixed with Geiger, Wellinger, Althaus and Selina Freitag went into the final competition of a packed weekend as the clear favorite after several top placements – and did justice to this role again. After 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021, it was the fifth world title in a row in this discipline. The outstanding Althaus had said after the second gold: “Everything that comes now is an encore.” Now four titles are possible for them at a World Championships, that has never happened before in ski jumping.
Team gold with Freitag, Anna Rupprecht and Luisa Görlich opened the outstanding weekend. After the coup, the quartet hopped through the outlet, relaxed, the gold jumpers roared loudly into every microphone: “We are the number one in the world.” Wellinger couldn’t sing that on Saturday, but the silver medal after tough years with constant setbacks seemed like a salvation for the 27-year-old Olympic champion. “I’ve always believed in myself and luckily I’ve finally been rewarded again,” said Wellinger.
Armbruster and Schmid with two silver each
As usual, a medal bank are the combined athletes. However, it is no longer Eric Frenzel or Johannes Rydzek who are responsible for the podium positions, but 17-year-old Nathalie Armbruster and 23-year-old Julian Schmid. After both had won silver in the individual competition, they also managed to do so at the world championship premiere of the mixed race on Sunday afternoon.
“It couldn’t have gone better for me. I’m just 17 years old. If someone had said that to me a year ago, I would never have believed it. I’m just incredibly happy. It’s an overwhelming week,” said Armbruster made an amazingly mature impression on her World Cup debut. On Monday we go directly to the class trip to Berlin. “I’ll probably be celebrated a bit there,” added the combiner. Norway around Jarl Magnus Riiber and Gyda Westvold Hansen cannot be defeated in the combination so far.
The German cross-country skiing team is still missing its first World Cup medal in twelve years, but two fourth places in the skiathlon (Katharina Hennig) and in the team sprint (Laura Gimmler and Victoria Carl) encouraged us for the second week. “Whether the boys or the girls, everyone showed great races. It’s a matter of time before that pays off in precious metal,” said team boss Peter Schlickenrieder. “We have big goals.”
