Schmid is “bitterly disappointed”
“Vierschanzentournee light” provides explosives
December 27, 2023, 8:14 p.m
For years, ski jumpers have been demanding that they finally be allowed to compete in a Four Hills Tournament. But there isn’t more than one “Golden Owl” in it, this time there is only half a tour. With the ongoing unequal treatment, the sport is becoming increasingly outdated.
Katharina Schmid is annoyed. And seems a bit resigned. “I can’t hear myself complaining anymore,” admits Germany’s best ski jumper. The frustration of the three-time world champion from Planica is only too understandable. Because while their male colleagues start the popular Four Hills Tournament on Friday with huge fanfare, Schmid and Co. are once again fobbed off with a light product. Half a tour is better than none. Say the proponents. Half a tour is not a whole tour. Say the fighters for equality on the hills.
The premiere of the “Two Nights Tournament”, officially abbreviated to TNT, will take place on Saturday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and on Monday in Schmid’s hometown of Oberstdorf. And indeed the touring torso contains explosives. “It’s bitter and slowly disappointing that we don’t have a Four Hills Tournament yet,” says Schmid. The women who have long since reached top level in ski jumping feel fobbed off.
“TNT” is just “a little consolation” for Schmid, better known by her maiden name Althaus: “It’s a bit difficult now that not all places are included.” A wave with the wooden beam towards the neighboring country. “We want to have this, this Four Hills Tournament. We really hope that Austria will follow suit,” says German sports director Horst Hüttel, almost pleadingly. The German Ski Association moved forward and is already at the start with its traditional tour locations Oberstdorf and Garmisch, albeit in reverse order.
Across the border, in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, little is happening. Instead, the women jump on the 3rd/4th. January on the Villach small hill. A small step forward: In 2022/23, the women spent the turn of the year at the mini facility in Ljubno, Slovenia, instead of the Golden Tour Eagle, as was the case with the men, it was about the – seriously – Golden Owl.
Two pioneers are no longer there
The disparagement of female ski jumpers is anachronistic; there is balance in almost all major winter sports. In biathlon, cross-country skiing, bobsleigh, skeleton, tobogganing and speed skating, men and women always compete at the same World Cup venues at the same time. In alpine skiing, the genders start separately for organizational reasons, with the exception of the final in the World Cup, but the program is practically identical.
So why is ski jumping lagging behind? Schmid is also wondering this, with no clear solution for the time being. “We can only put pressure on people in public,” she says. It is all the more bitter that two of the most important fighters for the emancipation of women’s jumping, the Norwegian Maren Lundby and the Austrian Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, have now resigned.
At the same time, Schmid, who also fights for better opportunities for girls in Africa, Asia and Latin America as an ambassador for the children’s charity Plan International, also has to take care of her own sporting well-being, because so far things haven’t been going well in terms of sport: eighth place was the best result of the season – That takes a toll on the ambitious woman from the Allgäu.
And that’s why this partial tour with the home game in their Oberstdorf on January 1st is a ray of hope. “It’s brilliant when all friends and family can stand at the ski jump,” says Schmid: “Having a jump like that at home on New Year’s Day is something very special.”