“This picture hurts.” 0.4 points were short of happiness. A great comeback after the worst injury

he might have been the hero of the day for Swiss fans, but he has become the hero of the most painful and heart-rending shots. he was in the lead after the first round and was very close to a historic victory in the World Cup competition. Unfortunately, it turned out that he was not even on the podium.

A great comeback after the worst injury for a jumper

In October 2020, Kilian Peier was seriously injured during the Swiss championship. The bronze medalist of the 2019 World Championships on the large hill in Seefeld soared to 116.5 meters, but could not stand still. The competitor’s skis ran quickly and he had a dramatic fall. The jumper was transported to the hospital, where he underwent an MRI scan. The diagnosis turned out to be fatal – rupture of the anterior cruciate ligaments in the right knee. One of the worst judgments for a ski jumper.

After a 10-month break, however, Peier returned to the hill and with each subsequent week he presented himself better and better. The Swiss has been impressive since the beginning of winter. He was sixth in Nizhniy Tagil and Kussamo, ninth in Wisła and fourth in the first competition in Engelberg. In fact, throughout the season he did not fall below 16th place.

In Engelberg, however, he jumped brilliantly. He was one of the two competitors who did not fall out of the top eight in each of the jumps. Therefore, a possible podium would not be a surprise. For the Swiss, it could have been the second podium in the history of competing in the World Cup. And if he stood on it in the Sunday competition in Engelberg, he would return to the TOP 3 World Cup after 742 days. Unfortunately, despite great flights this weekend, he did not make himself in the top three.

“This photo hurts.” Kobayashi was consoling the Swiss

Unfortunately, the jump in the second round did not work out for him at all. The Swiss flew only 132 meters and the competitors flew much further. It was also evident that this jump did not quite make it on the threshold. Despite leading the way after the first round, Peier finished fourth, losing just 0.4 points to the podium. Before him were Ryoyu Kobayashi, Karl Geiger and Marius Lindvik.

The jumper did not hide his breakdown, because, like the fans, he was waiting for the first podium for the Swiss in years. The jumper was immediately consoled by other Swiss, and a moment later even the winner Ryoyu Kobayashi approached him, patting him on the shoulder and hugging him. “This photo hurts”, “I feel sorry for him”, the fans wrote under the Eurosport tweet and it is not surprising, because every impartial viewer probably hoped that Peier would surprise him.

Everything changed after the Pyeongchang Games

The goal for the competitor, born in 1995, was the Olympics in Pyeongchang. Unfortunately, it turned out that Peier’s form was so weak that the coach Ronny Hornschuch did not decide to call him into the national team. It was like a hard slap in the face. He felt very hurt, but he made the right conclusions – Sylvian Freiholz, a former jumper and bronze medal winner of the 1997 Trondheim World Cup competition told the Swiss media. Peier performed two more times after the Olympics, in Lahti and in Oslo, and then decided to end the season prematurely. He realized that his biggest problem was a poor mentality and a lack of coping skills. – So what if I am considered a jumper with great potential, if I can not use it at all – then he had to complain to the coach.

The breakthrough was already visible in the summer of 2018, because Killian Peier won three competitions in the Summer Continental Cup and stood on the podium twice in the Summer Grand Prix. However, experts said that in winter everything would return to normal, and Peier would not be so strong. However, the winter season showed something else, and the jumper has already accumulated 339 points. This season he will probably beat this result soon.

The handball coach is behind the transformation

Two people are behind Kilian Peier’s transformation. It is about national team coach Ronny Hornschuch, as well as Othmar Buholzer, who has worked with Killian Peier since 2018. Peier calls him his personal mental trainer who cares about the mental condition of the player. During the season, the jumper talks to his coach at least once a week, and they meet every two weeks for some kind of therapeutic session. Buholzer himself has extensive experience in leading athletes, despite the fact that he does not come from winter sports, but from handball (he was even a coach of the U-21 team, which in 2003 took sixth place at the world championships). For years, Buholzer has also trained in the mental development of athletes, and you can also find his lectures on training in sports on the Internet.

It may turn out that Peier will be one of the black horses of the upcoming 4-Hills-Tournament, and the strongest will probably be in Innsbruck, because Bergisel is his favorite hill. And on it he also won the world championship medal in 2019.