— Since I stopped jumping, I’ve only dreamed about them once. In Innsbruck I missed the HS point badly. Of course I landed on my back. I didn’t dream about jumping more – Łukasz Podżorski tells us. He wasn’t dreaming, because right after putting his skis aside, he found another passion that took over him completely.
Continuation of the material below the video
Representative of the lost generation. He spent 15 years in ski jumping
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He hit the ski jump for the first time as a five-year-old. It was a natural path because it comes from Wisła. He started around the time the great master was entering his path to glory.
— Coach Jan Szturc saw potential in me. Anyway, I see that I’m still using this talent now. I think I’m just predisposed to hard work. When I compare myself to my cycling friends, I see that I can train for four days and then feel tired, while others are fed up after two days, he says.
He has some good memories from that time. Trips to the junior world championships, EYOFs or simply successful national competitions when the form came at the right time. — I remember one Solidarity Cup in Zakopane. I felt like I was in a rush and I won, he recalls.
He stood on the FIS Cup podium four times, but lost the Continental Cup with 11th place, the best in his career. He was 20 years old then.
— During the first year, I may have regretted the decision to leave jumping a little, but the further I got into life, the greater the sense of stability, it was no longer the case that everything depended on form, so I gained peace and distance, I realized that I didn’t need them to be happy – we hear.
This is one of the representatives of the 1996-1998 age groups lost to Polish ski jumping, which we miss so much today. Podżorski does not hide the fact that he tried to analyze why he became one of them.
— I’ve wondered about that a few times. Even from this current perspective, when I am a little more aware and have much more knowledge about sports and physiology. I think at that point you were simply too young to understand your body’s signals. At the school of sports championship, we all operated based on certain patterns. Later, when I joined the team, the gym was more personalized. I have the impression that jumping is a bit of a blind sport and in many cases it is probably difficult to predict when someone will jump out. At that time, I don’t know if anyone could tell where we were in our training. Now in cycling, when I make my own plan, I know what to play at a given moment to have a positive effect. I didn’t have that in jumping. Maybe that’s why so many boys from my age group fell apart and we didn’t have any successors to the master, he wonders.
The second issue is simply the lack of financial prospects at the most critical moment for Polish jumpers – the transition from junior to senior level.
— You turn 18 and the scholarships from the Lotos Cup, which you received every year, end. Then begins a period when you don’t earn anything from jumping and a lot depends on the situation at home. It wasn’t overflowing for me, and I knew how much I had to sacrifice to be able to jump. I was simply tired of the lack of money and prospects… Besides, it’s also a time when you want to live alone, drive your own car, preferably a nice one… Just become independent – we hear.
He left jumping. It was another discipline that stole his heart for good
I don’t regret the fifteen years I spent in ski jumping. — Today I am almost 30 years old, so I can say that I have spent half my life in ski jumping. It taught me a lot. Certainly systematicity, planning the day, striving for perfectionism, which is reflected in the jumps. That’s what I’ve had so far. My clients praise me for being meticulous, systematic and that everything is always 100%. prepared – we hear.
Podżorski mentions customers because shortly after he finished jumping, he went to a bicycle and ski shop. Initially, he naturally took up skiing, but it was enough for the winter to end for him to get more into cycling. Now he runs his own business in Wisła – PODZOR_BikeService. Moreover, he got very involved in training himself.
— Initially, I did a lot in the dark, I learned from scratch. After two or three years, I got an offer from a professional cycling club to ride with them as a mechanic. Then everything gained momentum. The guys showed me step by step how to train, how to work with these bikes, what to do to be faster. I got this “know-how” from guys who had been riding bikes longer than I had been jumping. In ordinary, everyday conversations, they gave me a lot of knowledge – he says and admits that mountain biking gives him more adrenaline than jumping.
— It’s something great, because in jumping this adrenaline rush lasts a few seconds, and in mountain biking, even in a marathon, you get a 15-minute descent during which you don’t have full control over the bike. Here you find a tighter turn, there a larger stone. You have to bypass this, jump over there. There are many more variables that give me the feeling of an extreme sport. What I do, i.e. marathon and cross-country, is not that extreme, but it certainly gives even better feelings than jumping – he says.
He trains six times a week, but he considers himself an amateur because, as he admits, he is still 15 years away from becoming a professional, having spent 15 years in ski jumping. Both here and there, his genetic predisposition helps him – he has gained maybe 3-4 kg since the end of his ski jumping career.
— I like this measurability in cycling. If you do a good three-week training block and then rest, you can count on getting stronger. This didn’t guarantee anything in ski jumping. Or it happened that you had great shape and equipment, but all it took was a blow from the back and you were gone. In cycling, you get what you work for and it immediately gives you a greater sense of satisfaction – we hear.
Today, Podżorski has completed about 60 races and can count on one hand the ones he didn’t really like. — Every race here is epic. One that I remember is definitely the Malevil Cup, an event accompanying the European Championships. It’s such a race that even if you planned to be in third place, and you finish seventh or eighth, you still feel great love for this sport. The level of organization, the approach to the discipline, the number of fans… You just feel alive. You don’t feel tired, your legs don’t hurt, you’re just happy. I also remember well the cross country race that took place on the ski jumping hill in Harrachov. In turn, one that I remember due to its high form is our Wiśla team from the Silesia Cup series this year. There weren’t any strong ones for me, he says.
He services the bikes of the best Poles. This is what his job is like
It’s probably hard to find better advertising than such a performance for his workshop, which is already well known in the community. — I work with two of the strongest mountain bikers in Poland, and with the entire JBG-2 team. In addition, I receive shipments from all over the country with bikes for service. Even from Gdańsk, so it’s nice that people preferred to send their bikes to me on the other side of Poland rather than to local specialists – he says. Therefore, Podżorski does not complain about the lack of work and adjusts his training to its rhythm.
— I started when I was 20, so I will be able to build my fitness to a certain level, there is no point in dreaming about competing in the World Cup. I’m betting on local competitions, possibly in the Czech Republic. Stage races like Swiss Epic or 4Islands are constantly on my mind. This is a more realistic dream to come true. I will probably remain an amateur, because after working with professional cyclists I see how much time and dedication I would need to reach this level – he adds.
And, of course, financial outlays. – This is astronomical money. When I prepare my bike myself, having the previously mentioned “know-how”, it is a bit different, but I know how much a player costs in a club. These are absurd amounts, I would say that per person even five times higher than in ski jumping. I remember when, as a mechanic, I paid for lunch for a team of ten people. It is known that a cyclist must eat well, so it really cost a lot… Not to mention other issues, such as transporting a bicycle on exclusive airlines. It’s definitely one of the more expensive sports, he admits.
This is the Polish Primoz Roglic. He gave up jumping
During the competition, he heard references to Primoz Roglic more than once. The phenomenal Slovenian cyclist even has a Continental Cup victory on his CV.
— Of course, on the road it’s a slightly different approach to training. Of course, technique also counts, but not as much as with us. Anyway, jumping helped me build this technique because I was familiar with the speed. Likewise, the sense of body was at a very high level. Therefore, the transition from jumping to mountain biking was very automatic and quite pleasant – he sums up.
