Schmid has big goals
Female ski jumpers celebrate their world premiere at the Monster Bakken
March 14, 2024, 7:03 p.m
After a long battle, they have finally reached their destination: the first World Cup ski flying in history awaits the women around world champion Katharina Schmid from Friday. For the premiere, Germany’s top jumper has set herself the magical mark as a goal.
Katharina Schmid has prepared gifts for the world premiere at the Monster Bakken. “Seven Seconds” is the name of the film in which the ski jumping world champion plays a leading role and which will soon celebrate its cinema premiere. On the many DVDs that Schmid took with her to Vikersund, she talks about her long-standing dream of becoming the first ski fly for women. A dream that will become reality for the first time at a World Cup from Friday.
The title of the documentary refers to the length of time that Schmid and Co. are in the air – in contrast to the four or five seconds during a “normal” jump. The distances are also enormous on the huge jumps, which for a long time were only reserved for men. “I want to do the 200 meters. That’s my biggest goal this season,” says the 27-year-old before training on Friday, which heralds the premiere competitions.
A year ago, Schmid, who was still called Althaus at the time, was allowed to fly in Vikersund together with the best jumpers in the world with the blessing of the world association FIS. But there weren’t any points back then, things are different now. The best 15 of the overall World Cup are qualified, three more made it through the overall ranking of the Raw Air Tour, including Selina Freitag.
Schmid and Co. are taking a further step towards the often invoked “equality at the ski jump”. It was a long battle until then. “In the marathon, it was initially said: This isn’t possible for women, the lungs and heart can’t stand it. Then a woman just did it – and it worked,” says overall World Cup winner Eva Pinkelnig from Austria in the “Seven Seconds” -Documentary: “So: Let’s fly.”
But there are still warnings. “As long as you fly safely and land without falling, everything is wonderful,” says Toni Innauer. According to the former world champion, “the fall events are systematically ignored.” This means that since women ski fly at significantly higher starting speeds than men, they would impact differently in the event of a fall. The consequences? Uncertain.