World Champion! After the success of Katharina Althaus, the German ski jumpers in the team competition at the World Championships in Slovenia sensationally followed up with a strong performance. It's only the third time after 2019 and 2021 that they've won medals - and this time it's gold.
Led by individual world champion Katharina Althaus, the German ski jumpers won gold in the team competition at the World Championships in Planica. Althaus, Selina Freitag, Luisa Görlich and Anna Rupprecht finished on the normal hill with 843.8 points ahead of Austria (831.1) and Norway (828.6). After the decision, the four jumpers danced a spontaneous friend dance in the snow.
"Gold just inspires, I was happy to take the momentum with me," said Althaus two days after her individual triumph. National coach Maximilian Mechler was overjoyed. "I was very nervous. Congratulations to the girls, they jumped great. I'm just happy and exhausted," he said on ZDF. "I was really, really nervous, but I did my stuff really well," said Rupprecht on ZDF when victory was not yet certain. The German Nordic combined athletes, watching in partly sunny weather, were delighted with the performance of their teammates.
Around 1,500 spectators, who created a good atmosphere with loud horns and flags, saw a real ski jumping thriller. With sets of 97 and 94.5 meters, Althaus once again stood out in Mechler's team on the normal hill. She has secured her place in the history books: She is the first ski jumper in World Championship history to call her own six gold medals. In the list of the most successful World Cup distance hunters, she climbed to fourth place behind the Austrians Thomas Morgenstern (eight titles), Wolfgang Loitzl (seven) and Gregor Schlierenzauer (six).
Only her former teammate Carina Vogt (2015, 2017) and Althaus himself (2019) had won two gold medals at a World Cup. In Planica, the woman from the Allgäu still has two more chances - the next on Sunday in mixed. The DSV quartet had already won gold at the World Cup premiere in 2019, but at the home World Cup in 2021 in Oberstdorf it was only enough for fifth place.
