Jens Weißflog on applying for the Olympics, competitive sport and politics

Three-time Olympic ski jumping champion Jens Weißflog is ambivalent about a new German Olympic bid. "I'm really pleased that the DOSB wants to go for it again. However, in view of the failed bids in the recent past, when we didn't even get beyond votes in the individual regions, we need to do a lot more convincing today," Weißflog told the German press agency dpa.

Today, it's not just a few peasants who are failing, as was the case with the 2018 Olympic bid in Bavaria, today there is a great risk of failing society as a whole. "Only when society thinks in terms of values again will we be able to hold the Olympic Games," said Weißflog, who celebrates his 60th birthday this Sunday.

Competitive sport as a school of life

However, he remains convinced of the special role of sport. "I see competitive sport as a school of life for children and young people, for people in general," said Weißflog. It is one of the few areas where real values are still taught.

With these values conveyed through sport, such as ambition, perseverance, the will to fight and so on, a lot can be achieved in life. Whether this succeeds also depends on the sport. "But almost everyone who has gone down the path of sport, whether in the past or now, speaks of a valuable time," said the former world-class ski jumper, who works as a hotelier in Oberwiesenthal. In addition to his Olympic victories in Sarajevo in 1984 from the normal hill in parallel style and in Lillehammer in 1994 from the large hill and with the team in V-style, Weißflog also won the Four Hills Tournament four times as well as three world championship titles and the overall World Cup.

Clear opinion on politics

Weißflog has a clear opinion on politics and dealing with the AfD. "Even if it's not a phrase I like to hear: I still see it as an expression of democracy that we have to learn to deal with. I don't think it's good to simply label AfD voters as Nazis and thus exclude them from democratic discourse. As long as the AfD is not banned, it must be treated as a democratic party. Even if there are of course people who hold extreme views," Weißflog told Stern magazine.

He sits on the Oberwiesenthal city council for the CDU and believes he knows the reasons for the AfD's particular acceptance in Saxony. "The CDU won the 1990 election with an overwhelming majority. The CDU has moved far to the left of the values it represented back then. It has lost its conservative values. I believe that AfD voters see the AfD as the continuation of this former CDU policy. People are longing for a return to conservative politics."