The Swiss Simon Ammann and the Japanese Noriaki Kasai have shaped ski jumping for decades. Both are now rare, but do not want to talk about the end of their careers. At least Ammann shows up again at the World Cup in Engelberg.
Legends desperately wanted! The ski jumping world misses its “Simi” and its “Nori”. The brief description of the wanted manhunt: Simon Ammann is Swiss, has the eternal mischief on his neck and, even at the age of 41, still has something clearly Harry Potter-like about him. And the Japanese Noriaki Kasai has long since earned the title “pterosaur” at the age of 50, and also has the most impressive “wild tooth” in winter sports. Only: where have they gone? No career end announced, no plans – just a lot of radio silence on the usual channels.
At least in terms of “Simi” there could be clarity from Friday: Ammann surprisingly appeared in the Swiss squad for the home World Cup in Engelberg. Will it be a farewell gig? Or will the double-double Olympic champion do the honors at the Four Hills Tournament ten days later? “I used to plan everything to do with jumping, now I plan around my studies,” said business administration student Ammann in his last public statement to date on Swiss television at the beginning of October.
Since the World Cup finals in Planica in March, Ammann hasn’t competed, family, flying and studies are the focus. His results for a part-time magician were previously decent: he was 13th in the ski jumping tournament in Oberstdorf last year, eighth in the Olympic team in Beijing – 24 years after his Olympic debut. “I’m not even thinking about the macro, the really big one,” Ammann told the sports information service at the time. He could have retired long ago and enjoyed a relaxed life with his wife Yana and their three children.
And twice the “Simi” had already said goodbye to the Olympic Games. In Sochi in 2014, when he emotionally announced that “99 percent of the time he would no longer be in Pyeongchang”. And when he is said to have promised his wife there before the 2018 games that it would really be over afterwards. And then? Was he in Beijing in 2022 and said about Cortina 2026: “Never say never.” No matter how: “Simi” will find a worthy farewell. At the weekend in his Engelberg maybe or at some point.
With Kasai one can now have doubts. He was once a regular guest in Engelberg, jumping for the first time in 1990 as a 17-year-old in the World Cup on the Gross-Titlis, the opponents from back then are partly over 60 today , second league, then only in the Fis-Cup, third league, at least with two seventh places. The desperate fight to return to the World Cup team is becoming increasingly hopeless, the dream of ending your career at the Olympic home game in Sapporo in 2030 at the age of 57 can only burst.
Loosely based on the old Lonzo Westphal hit: “The dinosaur is getting sadder and sadder.” But Kasai smiles away the sadness, continues stoically, in October at the Japanese championships, in training in Slovenia, where the World Championships will take place in February. And maybe it’s enough for the Engelberg Continental Cup, a week after the World Cup competitions. “I feel good,” Kasai recently wrote, as usual, succinctly: “And I will do my best to the end.”