Climbing back up the mountain: Dominic Thiem can take inspiration from fellow Austrian hero Gregor Schlierenzauer on the art of flying high again

“Flying high” is an expression that lends itself to various interpretations. It may describe a person who has achieved peak prosperity, a plane traveling at elevated altitude, or one’s state of mind after a moment of bliss.

Dominic Thiem frequents all of these experiences. Whether appraising success by dollar signs, wins or trophies, Thiem ticks these boxes with aplomb. A sizable chunk of his life as a tennis player is spent soaring above the clouds to meet the demands of tour life. And he’s felt no shortage of elation, whether it be the Austrian’s debut on the ATP rankings, the first time he defeated a Big Three member, or his long-awaited Grand Slam conquest.

Thiem gets airborne while working, too. After winding his racquet back on the baseline, Thiem is known for getting both of his feet off the ground when unleashing his gale-force forehand. It’s striking to the eye—though admittedly a short takeoff and landing when juxtaposed against ski jumper Gregor Schlierenzauer, who established himself as a legend back home, and hero to Thiem, by mastering the art of flying high.

“They are crazy,” Thiem expressed in an endearing manner during our conversation last September. “I cannot relate to ski jumping, nobody can. Playing tennis, you can do it no matter how good you are. Millions of people play tennis, but you cannot say, ‘I want to go ski jumping tomorrow’, go on a hill and jump down.”

Still, it’s not as if Thiem is wholly unfamiliar with the hair-raising sport.

“I liked it since I was a little kid. I enjoyed watching, I still do now,” Thiem says. “He was the first ski jumper I met in person. When I became better, I started to tell people I want to meet Gregor because I loved to watch him. He’s a super nice guy. We’re quite a lot in contact, actually.”

Schlierenzauer holds the record for 53 individual ski jumping wins on the World Cup circuit. Long before rewriting history, this determined youngster explored his athletic curiosities. A sports junkie, the Innsbruck native immersed himself into skiing, snowboarding, football and tennis, which he took up from the ages of 10 to 14. Despite being entranced by Roger Federer, whose German interviews caught his attention, nothing surmounted the instant connection Schlierenzauer felt when he flew for the first time.

Part of the original Winter Olympics program since 1924, ski jumping is an unparalleled pastime traced as far back as the early 19th century. Distance (measured by a jumper’s landing spot in relation to the hill’s marked K point) and style (where judges factor in flight, landing and out-run) are combined scoring elements to determine podiums.

Whereas budding tennis players can put in hours of training with an array of options ranging from academy programs to ball machines, aspiring ski jumpers must be patient with progression while maximizing learning opportunities (in practice and competition, jumpers can jump up to seven times per day). You can’t just walk onto a ski hill, as you would a tennis court.

There is an extensive, meticulous building process to reaching the largest hills, though as Schlierenzauer maintains, once arriving to that stage, the emotion of being mid-air is unmatched.

“We are one small part in the world which really can fly, but without any vehicles, without any engines. It’s of course addicting, this feeling,” he shared in a chat over Zoom. “It’s an unbelievable, really sensitive sport, which just a small [amount of] people can feel.

If a Venn diagram was plotted with tennis and ski jumping, the overlapping relationship would be a challenge to fill. Discernible necessities to become elite in both do exist—balance and explosiveness, for starters. Precise timing is an indispensable skill, and as Thiem points out, each discipline asks its athletes to bring differing breeds of bravery to the table. Mind and body working together to produce what’s been learned under pressure is a bond, although Schlierenzauer found that another individually-driven sport is a clearer comparison.

“It’s like golf,” he says. “You have just one big shot, one big jump where everything is counting together. The takeoff on the ski jumping table is under 215 milliseconds, so what you really need is a perfect feeling.

“The mental work golfers do, it’s really interesting,” he goes on. “They always have two boxes, the doing box and the thinking box. I really liked this. Before I make the jump, I always decided, ‘Okay, this is my thinking box. What should I feel with the in-run? What should I do when I go to the takeoff?’ and so on. The doing box was in the competition, where I filter it clearly with just two notes.”

While their specialties may not intersect much, Thiem and Schlierenzauer make up for it with their friendship. There’s an authenticity to their mutual respect, and both transmit a welcoming calmness when in conversation. They understand the sacrifice that comes with being dedicated to their craft, with family and heritage affording blessings the two hold to the highest regard. An affinity for winter furthermore links the champions.

Like his countryman, Thiem couldn’t live without distinct seasons. Before committing himself to tennis, he shared one favorite annual escape with family and friends in the Alps, searing vivid chilly memories into his soul.

“Until the age of 14, we went with one of my best friend’s families every year, and it was maybe one of the best weeks every year. I enjoyed skiing so much,” he reflects. “Usually, the air is much better and clearer in winter and everything is more peaceful. You watch the sun going down behind the mountains with all this snow. It makes such a beautiful picture and it’s [one] I’m going to have in my mind forever.

“Skiing is definitely a thing I miss the most. Right now, I’m not allowed to do it. It’s too dangerous for tennis.”

Even by minimizing risks, there are always circumstances one can’t anticipate. Having lost his first three Grand Slam finals, Thiem fulfilled his lifelong dream when he rallied from two sets down to edge Alexander Zverev in a fan-less 2020 US Open final, shortly after the tours reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic. He ended that season with wins over Novak Djokovic and Federer en route to a second successive runner-up effort at the ATP Finals, but 2021 was anything but an extension of a fruitful stretch.

After being ousted by Pablo Andujar in the first round of Roland Garros, Thiem damaged his right wrist in Mallorca in June. Summarized as a “detachment of the posterior sheath of the ulnar side,” withdrawals from Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics soon followed. A “mistake” during the recovery process later cost Thiem the opportunity to return to a fan-filled Flushing Meadows as the defending champion, and a decision was made to forgo the rest of season entirely.

“You cannot go through a long career without any injuries, it’s just not possible,” says Thiem, who this week revealed his 2022 season start would be further delayed after withdrawing from South America's Golden Swing with the hope of returning at Indian Wells.

“We are taking way too much out of our bodies, so the older you get, the more probably will come. And that’s what happened to me now. Gregor went through the same. He was on the top at only 16 years old and then his first injury came with his twenties. He came back from that and I hope I can do the same.”

A series of knee problems eventually took their toll on Schlierenzauer. Four Olympic medals later—highlighted by winning gold in the large hill team event at the 2010 Vancouver Games—he hung up his skis at the age of 31 last September.

During injury recoveries throughout his career, Schlierenzauer looked inward. He asked questions like, ‘What do you need to be yourself? Where do you come from? What was time like as a child?’ Finding answers in self-reflection boosted Schlierenzauer with energy needed to confront his setbacks, and he’s confident Thiem can do the same in 2022.

From his vantage point, Schlierenzauer views Thiem’s time away from the game as an opportunity to make advancements in multiple departments—and with the right structure, trusts the best is yet to come for his pal.

“I think Dominic has a really big potential to get world No. 1,” believes Schlierenzauer. “The most important thing is to be yourself. He has to work smart, but it’s a good challenge for him to work and to grow as a personality. The team behind you has to also know how you are, how you work, what you need.”

With new chapters to write, Schlierenzauer has his eye on watching Thiem compete in person at Wimbledon this summer. If the two can align their schedules, Schlierenzauer is ready to dust off his racquets, conceding his serve and backhand would greatly benefit from a major-title holder’s insight.

As for Thiem, he’s not currently in a position to launch off a ski hill. At 28—and in this late-blooming era—the spellbinding shotmaker has reason to believe plenty of peak years await.

Needless to say, that hasn’t stopped him from contemplating how it would feel to step into Schlierenzauer’s boots.

“It is possible for normal guys like us to jump from a 20-meter hill. That’s definitely something I want to do after my career,” Thiem says excitedly.

Upon hearing that, Schlierenzauer reacted with two pieces of advice. “The first is: are you sure?” he laughs.

“The second is: the skis should be with you, not against you.”

If that’s not a proverb for approaching the New Year, it should be. Here’s to Thiem taking off, flying high, and landing on his feet.