Athlete profile: Martin Höllwarth

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

In the years following his success at the Albertville Games, Höllwarth hit a mid-career slump familiar to the ski jumping world ...in fact, Höllwarth did not just slump, his ranking (and his ski jumping) dropped like a dead bird from the sky...after winning three silver medals at the young age of 17, Höllwarth plummeted to 90th in the World Cup standings in 1994, while failing to qualify for the Austrian Olympic team that year..."I did a lot of strength training following the [Albertville] Olympics and my knees started to bother me a lot," says Höllwarth. "I also had some muscle pulls and things just did not go my way. 1994 was very disappointing"...says Austrian television reporter, Martin Knöppel, "When he first came off the farm in 1992 no one knew him. It was only him and the hill. Once he opened his eyes and saw all around him, he started to feel the pressure"...but Höllwarth insists it was not the pressure..."When you are up on the hill you need to focus on what you are doing and what you have to do at that time," says Höllwarth. "I did not feel pressure, except when I looked at a competition from a distance"...but Höllwarth's plunge is not a new phenomenon to jumping -- it happened to Japan's Masahiko Harada and it happened to Germany's Jens Weissflog and Dieter Thoma...Harada came back to win World titles four years apart (‘93 and '97) after blowing it in the '94 Games, while Weissflog and Thoma both won medals in Lillehammer after a few disastrous years on the World Cup...now Höllwarth appears on the way back up -- 53rd in '95, 26th in ‘96...he finished 19th in the overall World Cup standings last year and placed 12th at the Worlds on the normal hill..."I think I could have had an even better result in Trondheim," he says. "I wasn't really that happy"... continuing his improvement, Höllwarth even won a World Cup Events in Willingen, Switzerland late in the year -- his first triumph since Sapporo in the 1992-93 World Cup season...these results have given Höllwarth new life and he's not just shooting to make the team or finish top 10 at the Olympics..."I would very much like to be in the medal in Nagano," he says. "And if that's the case, than I would love it to be the top one"...first, Hoellwarth must focus on his flying...Höllwarth has spent much of the past year playing with his takeoff -- a source of consternation for him...Martin's parents live on a farm and Martin often has to complete chores like feeding the pigs or bringing water to the 14 cows in the meadow...in his free time he likes playing golf and soccer...he has two brothers and one sister and he began jumping with his brothers at age nine over small jumps on the side of a ski slope...his first role model was 1992 Olympic gold medalist Ernst Vettori (AIRNST fuh-TOR-ee)..."I used to watch him on television and then try to do what he did," says Höllwarth, who finished silver to Vettori's gold on the normal hill in Courchevel -- site of the Albertville jumping...the region around Martin's home is better known for its Alpine skiers, and Höllwarth is friends with Leonard Stock (1980 Olympic downhill champion) and Stefan Eberhartder (1991 Super G and combined world champion)...he speaks no English...