Austrians stock up on sunshine

The Austrian top ski jumpers spent a few days in Cyprus recently in order to stock up on sunshine and energy before a long and exhausting season.

As Stefan Kraft tells, the sport still played a major role there, despite all the rest and recreation: "We had all kinds of possibilities in Cyprus to recharge the batteries completely for the winter. We were active, played tennis, beach volleyball, soccer and so on and just had a good time as a team. This really frees your mind and then you are totally motivated and fired up for the World Cup opener."

His teammate Jan Hoerl agrees: "We had just the right amount of training so we could still recharge our batteries. It was not too intense. Probably it also brought us even closer together as a team. The atmosphere within our team is definitely at least as good as the weather was in Cyprus. The winter can't start soon enough for me now. I'm extremely motivated."

Before the preparation for the upcoming World Cup season enters its final stage, Daniel Huber enjoyed this trip as well: "Most of the time we were training in the morning, in the afternoon we then had enough time for individual recreation. Some played tennis, others went for a run. In addition, we also had some strength/speed sessions on the beach with an American football, this was something different for a change. We definitely had fun here and that was good."

After their return home from Cyprus on Thursday, the Austrians will have two more training camps in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck before this winter's World Cup opener in Wisla (POL) on November 23rd and 24th.