Tomasz Praise for “Wprost”: Adam Małysz is right. This doesn't work

Adam Małysz's statement about Dawid Kubacki and Kamil Stoch after the second World Cup competition in Lake Placid was widely echoed. The president of the Polish Ski Association suggested on TVN that taking part in the Continental Cup would not be a bad solution for these ski jumpers and would perhaps help them rebuild. At the same time, he noted that perhaps such a solution should have been decided earlier. Meanwhile, Stoch and Kubacki consistently go to top-ranking competitions.

Is Adam Małysz right?

Ski jumping is one of the sports disciplines in which there is no single silver bullet to overcome the crisis. What is puzzling, however, is the fact that the Żyła-Kubacki-Stoch trio quite often, by their standards, does not enter the second series of competitions or even the competition itself.

– It will be easier for one athlete to get back into shape when he is in a racing rhythm, while another jumper may need training. There is no single golden mean. However, if President Małysz believes that it would be worth returning experienced champions to a lower rank, I would see some truth in it. The season has been going on for a long time. They go from competition to World Cup competition, but there are no results. I wonder if, for example, Piotr Żyła has become a permanent surprise, because he suddenly came close to the podium in Lake Placid, and before that he looked average – says Tomasz Pochwała, a former ski jumper and Nordic combined skier, currently a coach, in an interview with “Wprost”. .

Our interlocutor points out that at the moment even a weaker disposition is not the biggest problem for Poles. There is a bigger problem with ski jumping hills in our country.

– The worst thing is that there is practically no winter anywhere here. If you were to withdraw any jumper from the World Cup competition and send him to Poland, it would be difficult to find a place for quiet training. The normal hill in Zakopane is actually not suitable for jumping in these conditions because there is too little snow. Unfortunately, there is no madness on Wielka Krokiew either. I wonder what could help Poles the most, because they haven't learned how to jump. No one took away their talent, and they have a lot of it, emphasizes Pochwała.

The 40-year-old currently does not see a single reason for the worse attitude of the Poles in the 2023/24 season. Sometimes it may turn out that a given jumper has done great work in the preparatory period, but does not even qualify for the second series of competitions.

– Ski jumping is a very specific sport. In cross-country skiing, the athlete trains and feels that he has it. In ski jumping, sometimes everything goes well in training, everything fits motorily, and at some point something is missing and there are no results. It's hard to say whether our preparations for the season went badly. Now, however, the level is so high that there are five meters missing and there is no top player – Pochwała analyzes.

Is Polish ski jumping facing stagnation? Praise calls for calm

Considering the weaker results of our three champions, the jumps of Aleksander Zniszczoł can put a smile on the face of Polish fans. Sensationally, the less than 30-year-old jumper is the leader of the team. Recently, he finished in the top ten in World Cup competitions four times in a row.

One may therefore wonder how long his good form will last. Perhaps Zniszczoł will be the second Stefan Hula who, after turning 30, experienced the best period in his career.

– I would calmly look at Aleksander Zniszczoł's form. It's the same as we have young players who produce results. You can't get excited that they will definitely be strong in the senior competition. Olek must approach everything with a cool head and continue to work hard. These two elements may mean that we will see him at this high level in the coming years. However, I wouldn't look too far ahead, says Pochwała.

What attracts attention during the ski jumping competition in the World Cup is the fact that Poland has one of the oldest teams in the competition. Young jumpers are not yet at a level that would allow them to jump among the elite. Meanwhile, several countries have young, talented players who are scoring points in the World Cup. Some experts predict that after Stoch, Żyła and Kubacki end their careers, Polish ski jumping will experience a drought. Tomasz Pochwała does not agree with this statement.

– We don't know what the future will bring. I would advise you not to throw up your hands. When I was jumping, Adam Małysz was in the team with me, and of course he became the clear leader of the national team. Many people said that after Małysz, ski jumping in Poland would end. Meanwhile, they developed and we had many successes, also in team competitions. Therefore, in this matter, I would appeal for calm, because at some point there may well be a player who will mature enough to permanently establish himself among the world's top players – he concludes.