Because he is not qualified for the World Cup final, the Toggenburg ski jumping season 2021/22 ended on Saturday. In Oberstdorf and Planica, spectators were finally allowed again, which upset Ammann.
Still got off the ground in Planica – Simon Ammann tinkered around wildly until what was possibly his last career leap.
If it really was his last competition, his last jump, then it was a conciliatory end to Simon Ammann’s career. The 25th season in the World Cup came to an end for the four-time Olympic champion with the team ski flying in Planica on Saturday. He is not qualified for the World Cup final of the 30 season’s best on Sunday.
It was another complicated season for the Toggenburger, with a third place in the Summer Grand Prix in Courchevel he thought he was on the right track in preparation, but a torn ligament in his right foot in August messed things up for a long time. Sprints to warm up, for example, have only recently become possible again.
It got really sticky after the Olympic Games, when Ammann suddenly found himself without a goal and had to realize that things weren’t going any better in ski flying either. He has only won 17 World Cup points since the beginning of the year.
“Not in the mood for anything” – even the end of the season was up for discussion
After the Ski Flying World Championships in mid-March, he was “not up for anything,” said Ammann on Saturday; he even discussed the termination of the season with his coach Martin Künzle, physically he felt flatter than ever. But in the end the fighter and tinkerer gained the upper hand in Ammann.
Ammann pulled an old pair of skis from the basement and resorted to the straight binding bar to stabilize his flight. He of all people, the inventor of the curved binding rod! This decision alone shows what he has taken upon himself to get back to flying.
Actually, Simon Ammann only kept his word. In November 2019, he said in an interview with the NZZ when it came to the last leap in his career and whether he would announce it: “I want to do it the way I’ve always done it until the end. Before my last jump, I prefer to discuss with my trainers whether we should shorten the inrun.”
So Simon Ammann went to the ski flying events in Oberstdorf and Planica, the last two World Cup events of the winter. And it was a conciliatory end to the season, also because spectators were finally allowed again. In Oberstdorf, Ammann, now in the role of the seemingly indestructible long-running Japanese star Noriaki Kasai, received special applause, and someone even held up a poster for him; He thinks it was “lovely”. The affection of the audience was close to him – and to realize “that they like me”. He used to push such feelings away.
But of course: Ammann would have liked to present himself more strongly, he tried this and that, not only sorted out the curved binding rod, in Planica, for example, he paid special attention to the position of his hands in order to be able to keep the skis in the right position in the air . On Saturday, with jumps of 217.5 and 217 meters, he was clearly the best of a Swiss team that had reached a collective low, and his form curve was only right at the very end. “I was relatively relaxed and had a nice day.”
A wave goodbye? Simon Ammann still doesn’t know how to interpret his gesture.
The emotions of Oberstdorf and Planica plunge Ammann into a dilemma
But what are the emotions of Oberstdorf and Planica doing to Simon Ammann? What triggers the feeling that more could be possible? It seems as if Oberstdorf and Planica have plunged Ammann into a dilemma, at least temporarily. At the beginning of April 2020, he announced that he would extend his career by two years until the 2021/22 Olympic season, so it would actually have been over on Saturday at the age of 41.
But even before Planica, Ammann had made it clear that he would not comment on his future after his last jump of the season. His potentially final competition was to be a competition like any other, there was still so much to do, there was no room for anything else.
So Simon Ammann is still a ski jumper for the time being. The only reasonably concrete statement about a possible sporting future in Planica was that he would “probably still be on the list” of Berni Schödler, the head of ski jumping at Swiss Ski, in the summer. But: “That doesn’t mean anything.” In Simon Ammann’s everyday life, a lot has been left behind lately, he says: “I have to tidy up first, then I can see what’s in it in terms of sport.”
In the spring, Ammann moved back from Schindellegi to Toggenburg with his wife and three children. Because the house has not yet been fully renovated, he lives with his family in his hotel in Alt St. Johann, which he bought a few years ago. But the hotel also needs to be renovated, the temporary solution cost a lot of energy, and the move should work out in the summer. “The family,” says Ammann, “now has absolute priority. I want to give her something back.”
Even a one-year hiatus is an option
He can imagine only competing in a few selected competitions next winter, the Four Hills Tournament again with spectators would particularly appeal to him. He even brought up the possibility of a one-year break with his coach Martin Künzle, but he found little understanding with this idea. But Ammann says: “Anything is possible.”
The condition in which he will be in the summer and whether his body will tolerate a longer training break should be of importance. And maybe Simon Ammann will then say to himself with a little distance and without the emotions of the moment: “It’s good the way it is.”