The biggest bane of Kamil Stoch before the fight for the medal. Has he managed to “make friends” with the hill?

This could be the key to winning the gold medal in the large hill competition at the Olympic Games in. The jumpers had three days and eight official series to best accommodate the unusual raid in Zhangjiakou. Many of them had problems, and now the most important thing will be who is best to “get on” with him.

A strange invasion of an Olympic hill. Stoch complains about him. “It’s hard to adapt”

One of the competitors who complained the most about the inrun track on the large hill of the “Snow Ruyi” complex was. – It is neither striped, as in Bischofshofen, nor fully inclined, as we are used to in the World Cup. It is something in between and it is difficult to adapt to. As a result, I am still struggling with the inrun position – he will judge after qualifying.

This jump by Stoch – at 128 meters, thanks to which it took a bad place – was, however, already the best jumped by the Pole. At the first attempts on Wednesday, Stoch had the second worst speed on the threshold in each training – he rides 90.5 and twice 90.6 kilometers per hour from the 17th beam. On Thursday, Stoch was only slightly better, but on Friday there was a big breakthrough. Still in the test series, Stoch had the third worst speed, but in qualifying from the same 19th beam he would go faster than their winner,. 90.9 kilometers an hour would be a feat for Stoch, who had never been a speed demon. This is a sign that a Pole is feeling better and better on an unusual invasion.

Lindvik to win the qualification, but also had problems. “I’ve been struggling with this for a long time”

Lindvik, who is the main favorite for gold on the large hill after winning Friday’s qualification, has long been getting used to a different in-run in Zhangjiakou. – I hope I will be able to make similar jumps on Saturday. In the first training jumps I had a lot of problems with the position of the raids. I struggled with it for a long time, but on Thursday I managed to solve this problem and I finished well in qualifying – judge quoted by the official FIS website.

Stefan Kraft compared the inrun in Zhangjiakou to that in Wielka Krokiew in Zakopane. Because the other one is not regular, it has a slightly different inrun track. But a good indicator of whether the Polish facility is in fact similar to the one in China is the disposition. He is the one who always complains about the tracks at Wielka Krokiew, even saying that he will come there unnecessarily to the world cup competition. Here he seems to be doing well – he was second in qualifying.

The tracks in Wile are similar to those at the Olympic facility. But Poles rarely trained there

But there is one other Polish hill that is supposed to be similar to the one in Zhangjiakou in terms of inrun. It’s that name in Wile-Malinka. It also has Mana Original TopSpeed ​​tracks, installed there in 2017. They were brought to Poland by the patron of the facility himself, who agreed with the producers after one of the FIS congresses.

– I am very pleased with them – says the director of the ski jump in Wile, Andrzej Wsowicz, about Man’s tracks. – These are good quality summer and winter tracks. Tilt? The most important is the threshold itself and the parameter of 10.5 degrees, which is the most guarded. The rest of the parameters must be as in the project, then a geodetic measurement is made to compare them and approval is issued – explains the activist.

It is surprising that, since the tracks are similar to those in Zhangjiakou, the Poles trained on them little. In winter, they were only there for a few days. – This is the decision of the staff, Maciej Maciusiak from the second part of the staff would be more often here – Wsowicz points out. At the middle Krokiew in Zakopane, where Poles have trained more often, there are also Mana tracks, but according to our information, their specificity is slightly different than those in China. On the other hand, comparing Wisa and Zhangjiakou in the squad, we hear a tongue-in-cheek comment: that it is precisely in Wile that Kamil Stoch often cannot cope and needs several series to get to know the hill for good.

Soviets advantage. It was their company that created the Olympic facility. Will it not be a nightmare for them?

And who will benefit the most from such a raid on Chinese facilities? Probably the Soviets. Mana is a company from Kranj. In 2019, this town became the partner city of Zhangjiakou, mainly due to the cooperation of the organizers of the games with Man. They prepared almost the entire ski jumps – from the architectural design through the lighting effects of the complex to the inrun with TopSpeed ​​tracks. So it is not surprising that many of them resemble the large and normal hill from Planica.

– There was a lot of work, we did everything quickly and we had a few problems, but everything ended with our great success – says Mana Original director Milos Sterle for the Slovak news agency STA. She believed that it is the second most beautiful hill in the world, right after Holmenkollen in Oslo.

The facility in Zhangjiakou is believed to be similar to the Chinese soup spoon, although the organizers argue that the project refers to the ruyi bera – the local talisman. Therefore, one has to hope that on Saturday, during the competition on the large hill, the raid will turn out to be a talisman for Kamil Stoch and the rest of the Poles, and not a nightmare, which it may resemble after the first days of competition.