On the normal hill he missed 0.4 points from the medal. If he had got one higher mark from the judges, he would have had a bronze medal. But that’s still nothing! In the middle of the first Olympic competition in Pyongyang, he was the first, and Stoch – the second! It ended with the fourth and fifth place for Poles. After the final series I was forced to do my best. So much so that Simon Ammann was removed from the starting beam five times.
“Like a normal hill, and the competition supports …”
The four-time Olympic champion was covered with a thin blanket in severe frost and gusty winds. It was done personally by Sepp Gratzer, the man responsible at the time for controlling the equipment of the jumpers.
We regretted that there was no one there who would feel responsible enough for the competition to interrupt it and recognize the results of the first round as final. In the second, the conditions were really unfair. – I did not feel that I had such help that it would blow me so well. So it counted and there is anger inside, but I can’t help it – said Hula.
– After Stefan’s jump, I was convinced that he would have silver. I believe that Stefan did not have such good conditions, I do not know how it all turned out – commented Stoch.
While waiting for Hula under the hill, his colleagues were convinced that Stefan had a medal. And they congratulated him when it was shown on the scoreboard that Hula had as much as 18.2 points deducted for the mean wind for skis. It turned out that in the final classification Stefan will fall not only behind Andreas Wellinger, who will win the gold with a great jump of 113.5 meters, attacking fifth place. Hula was finally only fifth. 0.9 points from the podium. He lacked that much, Stoch was 0.4 points. We were deeply disappointed, and what must they have felt?
“Like a normal hill, and the competition supports …” – commented one of the fans in the social media. Stoch replied with a smile and wrote back: “I better not get it.”
The German coach was already jumping with joy
Seven days later on the large hill, nature somewhat gave back what the week before took us.
In the first series of the competition on the large hill, Stoch jumped 135 meters and it seemed that it would be good if he would be in the top three with this result. Before him, Manuel Hayboeck scored 140 meters, the bronze medalist from the smaller facility, Robert Johansson, 137.5 meters, and the gold one 135.5 meters. But for all of them, the system took small points for the wind, and it added to Stoch. He added a lot: 3.8 points.
The opening sequence after the first series looked like this:
- Kamil Stoch 143.8 points, 135 m, +3.8 points for the wind
- Manuel Hayboeck 140.4 points, 140 m, -2.1 points behind the wind
- Andreas Wellinger 138.8 points, 135.5 m, -0.6 points behind the wind
- Robert Johansson 138.3 points, 137.5 m, -1.7 points for the wind
- Dawid Kubacki 137.4 points, 134.5 m, -0.2 points for the wind
“he watched the competition with a stomach ache. And the staff coaches, he says, were constantly wondering at the tower whether to stay or to look for a toilet.” the competitions are approaching. Grzesiek Sobczyk is the same. Nerves are indescribable. And Wellinger did so “- we read in the report by Paweł Wilkowicz, Sport.pl representative for those games, in the report from Pyongyang.
Wellinger made the point that almost everyone saw him as a double Olympic champion. Because of him, Kubacki took a risk and landed on the 126th meter. As a result, he finally fell to the 10th place in the competition. Then Johansson achieved 134.5 m. Not bad, it was enough for him to get to the second bronze at that Olympics. After the Norwegian, Wellinger fired the bomb. 142 meters! In a style that delighted the judges – two marks 19 and one 19.5 entered the German’s score.
“The coach jumped on his assistant for joy, and Wellinger himself had the right to feel that after winning on a normal hill he would also be the Olympic champion from a large hill” – reported Wilkowicz on Sport.pl.
Werner Schuster in euphoria after Andreas Wellinger’s jump. Olympic Games Pyeongchang 2018 Eurosport screens
“I think there was no subway”. Stoch waited in great tension
Moments after the Wellinger, Hayboeck jumped only 131 meters. And finally it was only the sixth. Only Stoch was left in the competition. He calmly sat down on the beam, waited for the green light and coach Horngacher waved him a flag. And when it happened, it flew beautifully. But he landed in front of the green line that showed the place on the landing where he should fly to have the gold.
“There must be no subway. I think so,” said W³odzimierz Szaranowicz, commenting on TVP. And yet there was no shortage of! Wellinger deducted 4.6 points for his jump of 142 meters for averaged, favorable wind. Stoch was given 3.7 points for averaged unfavorable. Stoch did not see all these figures as he stood with his skis unfastened and eagerly waited for the final results. He was stressed because he saw that he had not cut the green line with his skis. But finally it was displayed: Kamil Stoch first! 3.4 points ahead of Wellinger!
Why has the thin green line deceived all of us? “Just before Stoch’s jump, the FIS system showed that the Pole must jump 138 meters to win. Stoch, however, jumped only 136.5 meters, but nevertheless turned out to be the best, and his advantage over Wellinger was 3.4 points […] Style notes are of great importance in displaying the green line. The green line assumes that the competitor will achieve 54 style points in his jump, which means that 3 x 18 points are automatically added to the score. The Polish jumper received 57.5 points from the judges, which is as much as 3.5 points more than assumed in the “to beat” line and this turned out to be decisive “-.
Stoch +7.5 points and Wellinger -5.2 points. “Kamil deserved”. Wellinger’s class!
In any case, Wellinger was 6 meters better than Stoch. And that’s a lot and nobody would be surprised if the German had gold. The truth is that if there had not been a compensation system in ski jumping, Wellinger would have won that competition by far. But he was deducted from the score a total of 5.2 points, and Stoch added 7.5 points. And that was decisive.
– Kamil deserved it. He won it, said Wellinger, showing great class, looking for no excuse.
– Andreas Wellinger caused me a bit of stress – commented Stefan Horngacher, trying not to reveal how much it all cost him.
And Stoch? “I was just trying to do things as normal,” he said. And most of all he thanked my wives. The most important thing for him was that she had come, that she shared his joy with him. He dedicated his third Olympic gold in his career. And accepting congratulations from him and hearing from him “You are wonderful”, he announced in jokes that in Beijing he would try to catch up with a Swiss who had four Olympic golds (two from Salt Lake City from 2002 and Vancouver from 2010). ).
Back then, Kamil did not really make any declarations about his start in. Today we are glad that Kamil Stoch jumped on the ongoing. And although he did not win the medal, he was undoubtedly great again.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
