Florian Liegl – Trondheim, that's where it all started
When in a dozen or so days everyone will enjoy Christmas and New Year's Eve, Florian will probably be preparing and participating in the 4-Hills-Tournament. But perhaps a 20-year-old from Tyrol, who moved to Götzens shortly before the inauguration of the World Cup, find a minute, to sum up my personal balance of this crazy year.
Actually, this story started exactly one year ago in Trondheim. It was then that Florian Liegl took part in the World Cup for the first time and already made a sensation in training. The coaches of various teams rubbed their eyes in amazement, when Liegl showed great technique and landed far ahead of most of the competition. “Who's that?”, could be heard on the coaching tower. Three weeks later, everyone knew his name.
In February he was the best in the competition on the Kulm hill, winning before 3000 the audience. He finished fifth in the World Cup standings, earning a lot of money during the season, “as much as others earn by
half life”. (Earlier in the season, Liegl competed as a ski jumper on the Bergisel hill with a camera attached to his helmet. This earned him money 100 euros and was incredibly pleased with it). In the summer, he signed contracts with sponsors, but he consciously took a different path than most of the group: it wasn't sweet, but salty, no VW or Audi, but Asian four wheels. And now the season starts again…
“A lot has changed in my life”, says Liegl himself. The changes have a positive effect on his life, without them, life would simply be much more boring for him. The Austrian was born with an indentation of the medial philtrum of the upper lip, with the so-called “harelip”, that had to be surgically removed. Your childhood, spent his youth in Innsbruck, in the city, and with my maternal grandparents on the farm in Kärnten, in the countryside. His parents Gabriele and Günther are not rich, but they are not poor either. The boy in school excelled in sports – he practiced athletics, he was playing soccer – but because of your laziness, he described himself as “extreme fujara” (Liegel quote). “Walesa” on a skateboard, often getting into fights in the streets. In Seefeld, he started his adventure with ski jumping, because like so many others, he found pleasure in it. By the age of twelve, he was already interested in girls, and at the age of 15 he had already had his first experience with alcohol.
The turnaround came in time, when Liegl entered the ski gymnasium in Stams, where he quickly became one of the best student jumpers in Austria. “Then Florian Liegl learned, how is it, when success overwhelms you”, says the athlete, who acted like a star and was careful, that if victory does not come, remains a normal person. He won a medal at the World Junior Championships, but then it began to grow rapidly: it was getting bigger, getting harder and harder. In the year of his graduation, he was so far from the national top, that some advised him: “drop it, it doesn't make sense anymore.” Liegl was graduating high school – and dropped it, but for exactly three weeks. He did it, what he wanted and decided: “I will try again.” It was in the spring 2002 year. To be sure, the Tyrolean applied to the university, in sports management.
The rest is known. Florian Liegl is one of the youngest players on the ski scene. Only, who reluctantly wants to be compared to others. Andreas Goldberger was his idol in his youth. Now there is no role model, but neither does he need it. Liegl cites his experience and says, that in the first 20 During the years of his life he has seen and known more than others. “I have contacts with people from all walks of life, to great athletes, to employees, to recipients of social assistance, to drug addicts. I know, what's going on in town, what in the countryside, what problems do workers have and what troubles athletes.”
Liegl climbed into the VIP category, he is an outstanding character, demigod (though it depends on your point of view). “I don't need that kind of recognition, I know, that I'm not a star, but quite a normal person. He likes hanging out with the girls on the landing, as well as with distinguished personalities on all possible occasions. And I know, how much is my success in the world worth: if a famous cyclist falls over in China, we in Europe are not interested in it. And if Mr. Liegl wins an important World Cup competition, the farmer in Afghanistan is also indifferent, because he has other concerns.”
Liegl can tell the good things from the bad. He is well aware, It always takes two people to argue.
The title of the United States as the defender of nations gets on his nerves. “How can that be, that the richest country in the world, which anyone can see, wherever he wants, did not capture Bin Laden and Hussein?”
Liegl especially enjoys listening to alternative rock (Metallica, Nadasurf, Jack Johnson) and read Hermann Hesse. He likes talking to his girlfriend Maria the most, whom he had first seen two years ago and had won her affections this year, shortly after Easter. She moved with him to Götzens, not because of, that he insisted on it. He left the decision to live together to her. “I do not care, is he a ski jumper, or not. Ski jumping has never really interested me, I found the discipline boring”, Maria says. “I like him, because he can listen, because he has open eyes to small things, because he is tactful”.
Maria was at the Summer-Grand-Prix for the first time – on the Bergisel ski jump – where her sister Greta and several others tragically died during the Air competition & Snowboarders styles.
Panic broke out at the Bergisel stadium, people rushed to the exit and several of them were trampled. Maria is religious, goes to mass every Sunday, based on values such as faith, friendship and family. Florian Liegl is also religious, although his visits to the church are severely limited: “I believe in god, that's why I don't need to go to mass”.
Maria and he promise to be the perfect couple, trusting each other, even if Liegl receives a day to 30 letters a day from female fans from Poland, German, Switzerland and, what is understood by itself, from Austria. If he is traveling, she works as a saleswoman in a sporting goods store in Innsbruck and furnishes their apartment together. “I want to see jumping live once this season”, Maria says, “I will mainly watch the competition with his family.” With parents Gabriele and Günther, brothers Christoph and Josef, who is the president of Liegel's fan club.
live day!, says Liegel's philosophy and answers the question, what is the most beautiful, questions: Was the most beautiful victory in the World Cup on the Kulm hill? Or maybe it was the unexpected results in the Continental Cup?
Is the most beautiful, has yet to come?