"Slovenians Will Be Well Prepared!"

Peter Prevc, one of the brightest talents of ski jumping told us about his first years in ski jumping, his idol, and his current situation after his little accident in Oberstdorf.


Thank you for accepting our interview request Peter. Lets go to the very beginning, how did you start ski jumping?

I’ve started ski jumping when I was about 8 years old. But at that time I was just jumping from the hills around our house, with friends. Then when I was 10, I made my first jump on a real jumping hill and I did pretty well. My father saw that I enjoy jumping and he drove me to the SK Triglav Kranj; where I started training on real hills.

Did you have any specific goals, like being a professional athlete or you just wanted to do the sport?

There were no goals at the beginning. It was like a hobby. I did a couple of other sports. But ski jumping is an amazing sport. So I decided to stick with it. And my goals became more clear.

You had many successes in Junior World Ski Championships. And you did very good things at Continental Cup at a very young age. Authorities now have high expectations from you. Does it feel like you are under pressure?

Yes I got silver medal at Hinterzarten, Junior World Ski Championships in 2010. And when I came back, my coaches and many people said that this was just the beginning. I knew that the things will get tougher, but it will also be very exciting. While everybody expects good results from you, it’s important to think positive.

You had an accident in Oberstdorf when you were at your best form. What can you tell us about your accident and your recovery process? Turkish fans were also worried, could you give some information?

Accidents happen all the time. I took the risk of a long jump, but I couldn’t make it. And I don’t regret that. Even now, more than a month after the fall; I still see my jump, how it happened. But now I’m getting better. Next week I will have one more operation to remove metal, and then I will start the preparations for the next season.

Both you and your teammates had great improvements throughout the season. Goran Janus seems to be very effective so early on, what do you think?

Honestly neither me or the team knows what is the reason. I can only make an educated guess; maybe it is Goran Janus and the new atmosphere he has created. But this is not the sole reason. Our progress is mainly due to our hard work during spring and summer. And of course we have a great coach stuff next Goran; Jani Grilc, Nejc Frank, and Matjaž Polak.We can’t ignore them.

They’ve done a very good job in Erzurum, too. Nejc and Jaka won medals. Our youth pool is very good. And I’m glad that I will not be the youngest athlete in the A Team next season.

Everybody thinks that you are a normal hill specialist. But you had some really good results at ski flying hills. What changes?

What changed? I did made some changes with my position in the air. I’ve been working on that and finally I achieved some good improvements. But this was only the first step. I still have lots of things to improve.

We are now one more season closer to Sochi 2014. Do you have any special preparations on your program for Olympics?

There's still a long way to Sochi. So it will not make sense to talk about on individual or team goals. But one think I can guarantee is that the Slovenian team will be very well prepared.

Before rounding up the question about ski-jumping, what do you think about wind-door formulation? Are the criticisms okay?

I think it’s wrong to criticise that harsh. It helps a lot to make competitions more regulative. But this is not an indoor sport; it’s in outdoors. And some maths and algorithms can’t make it perfectly accurate. You cannot beat the nature.

Well we talked about ski jumping but what do you do in your social life?

I think I’m a quite boring person in my social life. I don’t have much time outside of ski jumping. And when I do, I like doing more sports, answering the posts and the questions. Stuff like that.

Do you have a ski-jumper who you are inspired of?

Robert Kranjec is the one who inspires me. He works really hard and always motivated.

Every ski-jumper has a favorite hill. Which one is yours?

I have many of them. But Oslo-Holmenkollen and Zakopane-Wielka Krokiew are on the top of the list.

You are very young and now the ski jumping fans are around your age. How does it feel? How do you feel about having fans of your own?

It’s not difficult at all. Because it’s easier to be young, because you don’t think much, you don’t have to. And also, it’s very good when young athletes are so competitive. It makes the sport much more interesting. And it’s very nice to make people, around my age, love this sport.

And last question, about Turkey. Ski jumping is still developing in Turkey and most of the people are not familiar with it, because of that families are very reluctant to let their children to do this sport. What can you tell them?

I would say that despite the way it looks, ski jumping is a lot safer. Even if people might the other, it’s not dangerous at all. Accidents are reversely proportional to your rate of success. And in every sport, if you make a mistake, you can easily get hurt. Ski jumping is no different.

The most beautiful thing in my life is ski jumping right now. You do a thing that you enjoy and you earn your living from that, isn’t it great? It gives you dozens of good things other than the joy. As you get to know yourself, recognize your limits, you’ll know about the dangers and you will find out what you want. Ski jumping is a sport that kids should really think about trying themselves.

Alright, thank you for time and answering our questions Peter. We all hope that you will get well really soon and we will be able to see on the hills once again.