The ski jumping "Harry Potter" just keeps on flying
It has been ten years since Simon Ammann announced his retirement from ski jumping. But the Swiss athlete is still competing in the World Cup. Others are thinking about quitting, but the 42-year-old is simply drifting along instead.
Perhaps this is Simon Ammann's last, final career goal, his master plan: To lead everyone around by the nose for all time and simply keep flying forever. A final magic trick that would suit the Swiss athlete, who once achieved world sporting fame as the Harry Potter of ski jumping, perfectly.
The coming weeks will mark the tenth anniversary of "Simi's" first retirement announcement. And yet the now 42-year-old is still involved, starting on Friday at his home World Cup in Engelberg, as he has been for a quarter of a century.
"What if he just carries on indefinitely?" Swiss radio asked half-jokingly back in 2018. And Ammann just keeps going, half seriously. "To put it bluntly," says the double Olympic champion from 2002 and 2010, "I'm the only amateur athlete in the World Cup." And the double amateur pilot - ski jump and airplane - is still regularly finishing in the points in his 26th season.
Farewell drags on like the Rolling Stones
And even if he didn't, nobody would be angry with the most iconic Swiss athlete alongside Roger Federer, who retired six weeks younger and also quite late. Ammann has long seemed sacrosanct. A passionate rock fan in his spare time - "A ski jumper in his costume just doesn't look enough like a rocker - but of course we are at heart" - Ammann is succeeding as a sports version of the Rolling Stones. Their farewell tour also drags on. And they never called it that.
Ammann, however, did so for the first time in early 2014 when he announced after the Olympic failure in Sochi that he would "99 percent no longer be in Pyeongchang". And he did it when he promised his wife before the 2018 Games that he was really over. Since then, obituaries have been published every year about Ammann's accomplished sporting achievements and the end of his career has been heralded.
Ammann has been making fun of it ever since, only half-heartedly denying that it was "probably", his favorite word, his last Four Hills Tournament, his last World Championships, his last Winter Games. And then he was there again, at the 2019, 2021, 2023 World Championships, at the 2022 Olympics. And it would hardly come as a surprise if he were there again, at the 2025 World Championships, at the 2026 Olympics.
"I'm at a point where I can take care of the day-to-day business," Ammann told the SID in 2021 in the middle of what is traditionally his last season: "I'm not even thinking about the macro, the really big things." It's much nicer when everyone else is thinking about him.
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Despite his retirement announcement a decade ago, the ski jumping legend Simon Ammann continues to excel in the World Cup, defying expectations and setting a remarkable example in the field of Winter sports. His enduring passion for the sport and his uncanny resemblance to the beloved character Harry Potter in ski jumping have made him an iconic figure, much like the Rolling Stones who also refuse to call it quits on their farewell tour.
Source: www.ntv.de
