‘Pressure and fighting for one’s own always make sense whether in politics or sport’, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Facebook after Polish ski jumpers were allowed to start in Tuesday’s competition which inaugurates the Four Hills Tournament (TCS) in Oberstdorf.
‘Good news in difficult times is doubly valuable. Great news from Oberstdorf. Pressure and fighting for one’s own always make sense, whether in politics or sport. There’s nothing left to do but to keep your fingers crossed for our ski jumpers today. Thank everyone who fought for this decision to the end!’ – wrote Morawiecki.
The Poles were not allowed to take part in Monday’s qualifications because on Sunday Klemens Murańka had a positive result in the COVID-19 test. The test result was inconclusive but could indicate the onset of the infection.
The rest of staff members were in contact group no. 1, according to German regulations – they spent more than 15 minutes face to face or more than 30 minutes in a closed room with an infected person. Therefore, the entire representation was excluded from the qualification.
On Monday morning, Murańko had another test and the result was negative. All other staff members also had negative results. All this, combined with the information chaos (the competitors got know about the exclusion from the media, not from the organizers), caused more and more tension. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport Piotr Gliński got involved in this case.
In the evening, further tests were ordered and their results were to decide on the start in the competition. An extraordinary meeting of the captains of the representation took place at 9.00 PM. During it, the new program of Tuesday’s competition was approved, which was to come into force in case of a set of negative results in the Polish team.
And that’s happened. All tests were negative and at 2.30 PM there will be a training series, only with the participation of the Poles, at 3.00 PM there will be a trial series and at 4.30 PM the competition will start.
Apart from Murańko, the seven-person Polish TCS team included: Kamil Stoch, Piotr Żyła, winner of the previous edition Dawid Kubacki, Andrzej Stękała, Aleksander Zniszczoł and Maciej Kot.
After the competition in Oberstdorf on Tuesday, the next round of the TCS will take place on December 31st – January 1st in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and then ski jumpers will move to Austria for the competitions in Innsbruck on January 2nd – 3rd and to Bischofshofen on January 5th – 6th.