An Olympian explains: How to master Nordic combined with Felix Gottwald 

"I was struggling at the beginning, but I knew it wasn't a project for six weeks, it was a project for 20 years."

Felix Gottwald was just 13 years old when he told his father he wanted to dedicate his life to Nordic combined. It must have been a difficult conversation to have, as Gottwald's parents had already mapped out a future for him in the family car dealership.

However, the Austrian athlete, who has an uncanny ability to think in the long-term, stuck to his guns and began taking his first steps on a journey that would first take him to the Olympic Winter Games Lillehammer 1994. Slowly but surely, he continued to improve until he finally stepped onto the top step of the podium - twice, in the sprint and team events - at Turin 2006, before winning a historic third gold in the team event at Vancouver 2010 following a brief period of retirement.

Success was far from instant for Gottwald and, contrary to the thoughts of many, he believes it should not even be the main objective. As an athlete who ended his career as Austria's most successful Winter Olympian and the most successful Nordic combined Olympian of all time, there is a stronger message to be told:

"The top of the mountain can be a goal but the biggest objective has to be to come down that mountain again and be safe, be safe at home."

After five Olympic Games, Gottwald retired from the sport. Now, at age 45, he acts as an Ambassador for Laureus, supporting their mission of 'sport for good'.

Gottwald sat down with Olympics.com to discuss his passion for Nordic combined and reminisce over his legendary career in the sport.

Below is a transcript of that interview, slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Olympics.com (OC): How did you discover Nordic combined and what made you fall in love with the sport?

Felix Gottwald (FG): I was searching for a sport from my youngest days. I was doing different kinds of sports, but when I did ski jumping I was fascinated with it. Doing only the jumping was too little physical training and so my former sports teacher's son was doing Nordic combined and he told me, 'you have to try this, because you are pretty good at running and stuff like that' and so I tried the jumping and then I tried cross country skiing. I always had the feeling that I could ski much faster but I didn't have the technique.

However, the main key was, the plan of my parents was that I should continue the family business - my father had 30 years as a car dealer. So it was a challenge to tell him when I was 13 years old that I wouldn't continue this business and I wanted to become a Nordic combined skier. And if I look back to those days, I'm really impressed... but in the end I was allowed to go in this direction, even though our deal was that I should do my exams as well.

And then it was pretty hard at the beginning because I started with ski jumping when I was 13 and it was quite late, so I struggled at the beginning but I knew it wasn't a project for six weeks it's a project for maybe 20 years, which is what it ended up being... the medals weren't the biggest success, the biggest success was to go the way I really wanted to go. That's what I can tell all young people, just ask yourself which dreams you have and then follow them.

OC: Do you still practice Nordic combined? And what is your daily life like now?

FG: You know, I stopped ski jumping because you are not able to jump slower. You can ski slower, but you can't jump slower. I'm still in training, I'm still in shape, so sport is a part of my life. But you have to handle business and your family, and there's a lot to do and normally the day is almost too short for all my projects.

After the situation with the pandemic, there's a lot of work. To find the balance again is maybe the challenge we all have to handle. In Nordic combined skiing, you have to master the balance between jumping and cross-country skiing, and we have to handle having this balance in our lives every single day.

OC: When you were growing up, did you have any athletes you looked up to or anyone you thought of as the legend in your sport - or were you trying to find your own way?

FG: Actually, it's the second description. For sure, there were athletes we knew because they were the most successful at the time in Nordic combined skiing, but I was struggling [to make] my own way and there was not that much time to look to your left and right, or forwards and backwards, So I was really busy enough handling every single day and this is a big advantage, that the only time we are able to create is that moment. I was struggling being at the Olympics and thinking about four more years, that if I cannot perform today I have the chance in the next four years.

It was quite a long journey to recognise that the only thing you can do is to use each day and try to get a little better in the evening and in the morning.

OC: The first time you went to the Olympics, you were 18 and it took years for you to win a gold medal. What was that journey like for you?

FG: It was a long journey. I remember the Games in 1994, I was 17 or 18 years old and I was really impressed about how big the Olympic Games were, and I almost forgot to ski and to jump. But four years later, in Nagano in 1998, I was struggling, too. We had realistic chances to win medals but we made a lot of mistakes - more mistakes than other teams, so we didn't win any medals.

So I kept on working and in Salt Lake (2002), I was able to win three medals in three competitions and I won three bronze medals and after a while celebrating in the Austrian house, I met our Olympic champion Franz Klammer and he congratulated me and was impressed about my performance, but he also said, 'Felix, you know the thing that counts at the Olympic Games is the gold medal.'

So I had an inner conversation with myself to see if I was encouraged enough to set my goal once as this gold medal. And to be honest, I was almost thinking I'd be satisfied with those three bronze medals... But when I was able to focus on a single day (the day of the Olympic Games competition) I was able to get to work on that goal.

OC: What are the moments that stand out above the rest in your career?

FG: Luckily it's not possible to pick out moments. The biggest results were the friendships we found during that long period. We had teammates, we are still friends and spend good times together. We keep on going, we are not telling the old stories again and again, because we want to do thankful things with our experience and share our experience.

But as an athlete, you always know that if you win a medal the success is already in the past. So keep on going.

OC: How would you describe the sport of Nordic combined in a few words?

FG: It's all about balance between ski jumping - which is nothing normal, nobody normal jumps down a hill - and totally different skills in cross-country skiing. In cross-country skiing, it's endurance, really hard, intensive training, and in ski jumping there's this technical part, you have to activate your fast muscles. But to find the balance between those two disciplines was the fascinating part.

To be honest, I never had the idea that I found out how to handle the balance, but I tried until the end.

OC: What do you think the biggest skills or qualities you need to succeed in Nordic combined?

FG: It's not about Nordic combined. The main skill is to be honest enough with yourself to ask what you really want to do. And if the answer is Nordic combined, go out and train and work for it.

But the reason why needs to be big enough that you can go through the valleys and handle the situation when you lose, because we are all really experts in losing... to be honest most of the time I lost and only won really seldomly. So we are used to losing, but we are also used to standing up and trying it in a different way, to think about what we can do better next time.

OC: You had great success on an individual level, but also with the team at the time. What do you think made the Austrian Nordic combined team so special?

FG: We spent about 300 days a year together. So this is more of a family than a team. For sure, there are troubles within families, and you have to discuss and find solutions but we were spending our holidays together after the season and we had a really good time together. So we were like brothers.

We didn't have the social media part at the time, so we spent real life time together... we had good times and we were training hard when we were young, we'd drink a beer as well but then we'd get up in the morning and keep going training. It was a great time and this was the first thing I missed when I retired.

OC: The Winter Olympics are coming up. Who are your favourites to do well in Beijing?

FG: I spent time in the glacier with the Finnish team because they invited me to dinner there to share my experience of the Olympics with them. An Austrian coach is coaching them now and they know it's not enough to be 'successful' so they really want to inspire young people and they really want to inspire others through Nordic combined...

It's easy to say as an Olympic champion, but it's probably easier to win the Olympics than World Cup races because there are less competitors involved. But you have to go there and be sure that the normal things you are doing are good enough. You have to work every day on it and not say on the starting line, 'I should have done this in the summer as well'. It needs to be the whole journey - that's the real challenge.

OC: Following your retirement from the sport, you joined Laureus as an Ambassador in 2013. What did it mean to you to join the organisation?

FG: We were lucky as athletes to have this sport, to develop our personality and to keep on going our own way. But a lot of young people, they don't have the chance to do sports, because they don't have the surroundings or equipment. But to have the chance to do sport more often, then you always have the possibility to develop yourself and to make a world inside, and that's why the world outside is a better place. And so if I was able to join the Laureus family I wanted to join them and to bring my experience and share it with young people.