Only one knight followed Stoch. “It’s hard to believe anyone”

– This is probably the best day of my life, although I have won so much before – he told oe24.at after the Monday team competition. Because he actually had three world championship titles until the Beijing Olympics, two Crystal Balls for the World Cup general classification, won the Four Hills Tournament, or the world record in the length of a ski flight. . Finally, he will leave China with the first golden ring in his career.

Kraft was lucky enough to miss the golden games, but “finally he waited”

– To be on top of the most important event of the season with your team, to be an Olympic champion with your best buddies is unbelievable. I really wanted to take something home with me. You saw that I was able to afford it from the first jumps, now I finally waited – he described.

It is true that if the team was seen as another individual competition, he would have been out of luck again in the results. Kraft, who was tenth on the normal hill and thirteenth on the large hill, would be tenth again after 127.5 and 121.5 meters. Fortunately for him, the rivalry between the teams in Zhangjiakou was mainly about who would have the most even team. And in this the Austrians – apart from Kraft, the fourth Jan Hoerl, the eleventh Daniel Huber and the twelfth Manuel Fettner – turned out to be the best in China.

He was laughing that he would “try at most in four years”. After Beijing, it won’t have to be

– The Games? Well, they are special, and I still don’t have a medal on them. This is my dream. Sure, I would like to somehow crown my work, which I have been doing recently, at the most important event. To do this, I need a medal. In order to win a medal, I need to be fit, lucky and with the right attitude. I don’t try to think only of Beijing, because that is how I will never get what I want. If I fail this year, I will try at most four years later – laughed Kraft in an interview with Sport.pl in November last year.

In fact, with the team in Kraft, he could not be satisfied with his achievements at the Games. First, he did not go to Sochi in 2014, when he was just reaching the level of the world leaders. Four years later, the form may have been at its highest a month before the Pyongchang performance, but it mysteriously vanished in Korea. In China he achieved his goal, although he is probably not fully satisfied with the Games anyway, because in the individual competitions he missed the podium a dozen or so points.

A long-lived kraft like Stoch. “Everything must fit together. Each puzzle creates a perfect puzzle”

For Stefan Kraft, the Olympic season is the tenth in which he competes in the World Cup. – How do I feel about it? Well, not as if I were proceeding to the first one, there is nothing to hide. I have a lot of experience, but it does not change that I approach each competition with a big smile and big expectations. I still have high ambitions, I set myself high goals – Kraft described his attitude to us even before the first competition.

Apart from the list of his great successes in the form of Kraft, it is impressive that he is probably the only one next to him for the last ten years or so to remain in the lead. And even when he is not doing it, like last season, he is able to shine and at the most important moment be on the top. Just like on a large hill, while quite unexpectedly, looking at the previous weeks, he won the gold medal.

So how do you achieve such perfection in jumping? How to make the best results even attract the name of the jumper? – It’s really hard. You have to reach the limit of your possibilities every year, put pressure on yourself, keep getting better and better. It is a great feeling to be a jumper like Kamil, who has been in the lead for several years, argued Kraft. – Everything must fit together, fit together. What is in the background, i.e. family, friends, team, staff, coaches. Each of the puzzles creates this perfect puzzle – betrayed the Austrian.

Kraft was infected by his best friend. “He was charmed”

An interesting issue in Kraft’s career has always been how he started his adventure with jumping. “The interest in jumping came with my best friend Christian Reiter. One day I watched the show jumping competition. I did not know them before and just watching it did not satisfy my curiosity and fascination. I felt real satisfaction only a few days later. I stood on the hill myself at the age of ten. From that day on, nothing could stop me from thinking about a professional jumper career “- wrote the jumper on his official website.

– It was more or less like what Stefan described it – tells us the mentioned by Kraft Reiter, who jumped for seventeen years himself, but has already finished his career. However, he has not lost contact with the Austrian, they are still friends. – My dad was a coach at that time, me and Stefan were doing something related to sports every day. Then it was jumping, Stefan was charmed. I was surprised why he started so late, because I made my first jump at the age of four – he quotes.

– He was very talented and kept getting better every year. He became a role model for many of the young players in Salzburg. I had good results too: I won everything until I was sixteen. Stefan didn’t need much time to catch up with me and then he became the best in the group – describes Kraft’s friend.

“We collided with the handlebars of our bicycles, looked at each other, laughed and were best friends again”

Reiter appreciates every moment he has shared with the jumper. – In sport it was best when we went to the competition together, we lay in the room before the start, or stood on the podium. He hasn’t changed at all and when we meet he’s the same person he was a few years ago. He’s just busier, so we see and write less often. However, whenever I congratulate him on a good performance, he writes back. Even briefly, and when we finally talk longer, it ends with telling our shared memories – says the Austrian.

Therefore, we ask about those that are immediately visible in front of our eyes. – Stefan and I participated in an alpine skiing competition organized by Walter Lackner in Grossarl. We were children and our skis were only loaded with a load of 20 kg at the start. This caused the ski to just stop at the starting gate when I started. I fell and started sliding down the snow on the track. I just looked to the side and saw Stefan grab his head, taking the elevator to his passage at the same moment – laughs Christian Reiter.

And he tells one more story. – Holidays in Croatia, Pula. I don’t even remember if Stefan was laughing at me when we played soccer, or if I was making fun of him, but we took offense at each other. We didn’t talk and rode our bicycles home. We didn’t even say a word, but at one point, we hit the steering wheels and fell onto the road. We looked at each other, laughed and were best friends again, says Reiter.

He had a headache, needed a massage, and then he stood on the podium for the first time. And it’s at home

– Did I expect Stefan to become a ski jumping legend? That he will break the world record and have so many medals? No, that would be hard for anyone to believe. Of course, I thought to myself, seeing its development, that if everything worked properly, who knows where it will go. But such successes were beyond my imagination, points out Reiter.

The first moment when Kraft’s talent shone in the Austrian competitions of the 61st 4-Hills-Tournament. – At Bergisel I was 23rd and scored the first World Cup points. Two days later, on my own hill in Bischofshofen, where I grew up in sports, I was third. And still in the morning I felt sick. I woke up and thought: it probably won’t be my day. I had a headache and I went to our physical therapist to ask for a neck massage. Then I felt a flow, I had a great rhythm and jumps gave me a lot of pleasure, although it was raining a lot. All the circumstances looked unpleasant and this result made this day one of the best days of my life. I come back to it a lot, Kraft told us.

“When Widhoelzl and Morgenstern were winning, I asked for an autograph and a photo.” And now Kraft is winning with Widhoelzel by the side

Two years later, on the Feast of Three Kings at the ski jump in Bischofshofen, he was already the winner of the entire 4-Hills-Tournament. – It sounds trivial, but whenever you go to training where the winner is decorated, you dream that you would be in the same place someday. I still have chills when I think about the day when I raised the Golden Eagle mountain in front of the fans from my home region. They knew me and they were happy with me. I will never forget it – described Kraft.

– When I was a child, my parents took me to the hill and I was one of those young jumpers who always waited for an autograph and an idol photo. When Andreas Widhoelzl and Thomas Morgenstern won, of course I asked them for them. I still have them somewhere. But then I stood in their place! This is unusual, quoted the Austrian. The history has come full circle, because now that Kraft has become an outstanding jumper, he won gold in Beijing with Andreas Widhoelzl by his side as the coach of the Austrian team.

– Stefan is like a machine. He could snatch the gold only with his faith in success. I would be happy with every tenth place he takes, because to fight the best everything has to come together, and it is natural that sometimes the jumper will miss something else. But now I am very happy that he has this gold medal – adds Christian Reiter.

The pains did not allow Kraft to do anything. “I wanted to move from the couch straight to the mammoth hill. The problem with my back cut me off from the sport”

Kraft’s career, however, is not a fairy tale, which might be indicated by his successes. It is also a path full of sacrifices and problems. One of them was trouble with his back, which at times made it impossible for him to even jump. – It started in June 2020. During the summer training camp due to a back injury, I had two months taken out of my CV. Three or four times, there were waves of pain that allowed me to do nothing but lie in bed. Fall was better, but I caught Covid at the start of the season. The infection passed relatively mildly, but my back could not hold out when I tried to move from the couch straight to the mammoth hill in. I gave my first jumps and after them the problem with my back completely cut me off from the sport, prevented me from participating in the World Championships in flying. For this I needed the support of physiotherapists, trainers and a lot of my own work on rehabilitation, but also controlling my own body – he explained.

– I changed my gym habits, my training was a bit different. To this day, I have to do something every day to reduce the risk that my back problem will come back and get worse. But it is much better now, I don’t complain about my health. Am I afraid that the injury will come back? No, because I already know how to act, even when the trauma is overwhelming me. It may appear, of course, but I have it under control, I feel safe – assured Kraft.

Kraft promised the girl a trip around the world. He will go to it with a smile and satisfaction

Kraft’s problems were to be counterbalanced by his new passion. A springboard from health problems and sports pressure. – I recently took a course and got a license to sail a boat. I have a plan to go to the sea, motorboat and add some scuba diving to it. In summer my girlfriend and I went on our first little trip on vacation. And we had a little problem. We ran out of fuel far from the coast and had to ask another boat for help. We sailed with them to the beach and drove to the nearest gas station. But it was Sunday and no one was working there. The boat was towed to us, and we extended our stay by one day so that we could sail it back – recalls Kraft.

Now the jumper will have to fulfill a certain promise: he promised the girl that if he would bring gold from Beijing, she would go on a long journey. Maybe even around the world. It seems, however, that he will keep his word with pleasure and satisfaction at his next great success. He proved something to himself again, now I just want to enjoy this medal.