The Germans do it.

The Norwegians do it.

The Poles do it.

And the Austrians anyway.

All four nations rely on alpine expertise in ski jumping.

Austrian trainers have been style-defining for years - and they all have one thing in common: They went through the squad forge in Stams.

Ralph Weitbrecht

sports editor.

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The Tyrolean ski school trains jumpers and coaches alike.

One who learned his trade there has been living in the far north since 2011.

Norway has become Alexander Stöckl's second home.

Oslo is the place from which the 49-year-old regularly sets out for World Championships, World Cups and the Olympic Games.

And of course also to the Four Hills Tournament.

"Stams is also a coach factory"

Stöckl raves about Stams, as he says in a conversation before the start of the tour.

"We have a very good coaching education in Austria and a very good culture when it comes to sharing information." That's where Stams comes in.

"Stams is not just an athlete factory, it is also a coach factory," says the Norwegian head coach.

"Werner Schuster, Richard Schallert, Toni Innauer - many went through this school in Stams."

Andreas Widholzl, the head coach of the Austrian ski jumpers around frontman and tour favorite Stefan Kraft, also learned his lesson in Stams.

"Here you have a sparring partner," says Stöckl.

"Here you can develop as a trainer." For the Austrian Norwegian, who has long felt at home in the cradle of Nordic skiing, one thing is certain: "These competence centers are very good.

And Stams is the greatest.

I think over 90 percent of all medals in ski jumping are from Stams students.”

If you want to be on the coaching tower in ski jumping and at the same time belong to the best of the best, you should be Austrian.

It is Stefan Horngacher.

He is responsible for the German long-distance hunters around Karl Geiger and Co. His longtime predecessor at the levers of power: an Austrian.

Werner Schuster stood for an era – just as Stöckl has done for the Norwegians for many years.

In Poland, Thomas Thurnbichler has been in charge since this season - and success has promptly returned to the show jumpers around Dawid Kubacki and Kamil Stoch.

Last year Thurnbichler was the co-trainer of the Austrians.

When the offer came and he decided to lead the Poles back to the top of the world, he took familiar compatriots with him.

"It's like football," says the experienced Stöckl.

"It's not just down to one man, the head coach, it's down to the whole team.

The boss takes the whole team with him.

It's no different in ski jumping.” Specifically, Thurnbichler took Marc Nölke with him as his assistant.

"That was Alexander Pointner's assistant at the wedding," says Stöckl.

Those were the years when the Austrian super eagles won the tournament seven times in a row with six different jumpers.

Thurnbichler is now in ski-jumping-crazy Poland, where the ski jumpers enjoy cult status and – like soccer professionals elsewhere – are worshiped like pop stars.

When this Thursday (4.30 p.m. on ZDF and Eurosport) the first jumper goes over the Bakken at the Schattenbergschanze in Oberstdorf, when the tour and the ambitions of the Germans get really serious, 21 years after Sven's Grand Slam coup Hannawald to finally win the ski jumping classic again, then of course there will also be Polish spectators among the 25,000 in the arena, which has been sold out for months.

Witches' cauldron atmosphere that is incentive, excitement and assignment at the same time.

In the past two years, due to the corona virus, there were no fans when Stöckl, Horngacher and colleagues lowered their flag on the trainer tower to mark the start.

Now it will be loud, shrill, emotional.

Things that can affect the execution of the complex jump.

Kraft, the world record man in ski flying at 253.5 meters and the last Austrian tournament winner in 2014/2015, makes no secret of his feelings.

"The heart will beat a little faster," says Austria's best ski jumper.

The pulse of Karl Geiger and the other Germans should also be a bit higher.

"It's going to be a great atmosphere, it's unbeatable," says Geiger before the first tournament on his home hill.

He knows: “There are a few competitors who are setting the hatch at the moment.

But I hope that I can continue my trend and annoy the others," says the man from Oberstdorf.

In the World Cup he is seventh, well behind the leading quartet of Kubacki, Anze Lanisek, Kraft and Halvor Egner Granerud.

In Titisee-Neustadt, third place was Geiger's only podium finish.

Of course, that doesn't have to mean anything, because two of the youngest three winners of the Four Hills Tournament - Kubacki (2019/2020) and Stoch (2020/2021) - came to the tour without a win, Kubacki even without a podium place.

Conversely, this means that a lot can happen during the German-Austrian border experience on four completely different hills.

The German national coach Horngacher says: “The really good jumpers often only come into top form during the tournament.

And the one with the yellow jersey definitely has the biggest backpack.” Last year Geiger came to the tour in yellow – and finished fourth.

Let's see what Kubacki, led by a trainer from Stams, has to offer in the one and a half week ski jumping week.