Dieter Thoma
Dieter Thoma (born 19 October 1969 in Hinterzarten ) is a former German ski jumper. He was in the 1990s one of the world's best in its discipline.
Career
Thoma grew up with four siblings in Hinterzarten in a closely connected with the family on winter sports. His father Franz, even in the 1960s as a member of the German national team skiers, founded in 1967 with the construction of three ski lifts an alpine ski center. Dieter Thoma was not the first successful ski jumpers of his family: His uncle Georg Thoma was in the 1960 world champion and Olympic gold medalist in Nordic combined.
His first jump experiments took Dieter Thoma at the age of 6 years. At 16 he first won the German league title and became Junior World Champion. His first World Cup points he won on January 1, 1986 in Garmisch -Partenkirchen with eleventh place. At the age of only 19 he won his first World Cup in Thunder Bay. Two years later (1990 ) he triumphed as the first West German 30 years after Max Bolkart at the prestigious Four Hills Tournament and was the end of the season also ski flying world champion in Vikersund. After that Thoma established in the world rankings. By the early 1990s, early development of the transition from parallel to the V- style Thoma came in the season 1991/1992 initially not cope. He was one of those jumpers who continued to seek success in the traditional hopping variant. At the same time also conducted a surgery on his left lateral meniscus in March 1992 to the fact that he was able to train the following summer little. In this phase of his career sporting success therefore remained predominantly.
Prior to the 1993/1994 season Dieter Thoma turned to his art from now outdated parallel to the V- style and won at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer with the German team the gold medal in the team competition. He also reached the bronze medal on the normal hill. Overall Thoma won 10 medals at World Championships and Olympic Games. In the 1996/97 season he finished second in the overall World Cup.
After the 1998/99 season, which found its crowning glory by winning the World Cup team gold medal, Dieter Thoma resigned due to many injuries and severe pain from competitive sports. A total of eight knee surgeries, two complicated operations thigh and a broken arm and a few concussions were the background.
On New Year's Eve 1999/2000 Dieter Thoma ended his career as a ski jumper at midnight with the so-called " millennium leap" from the ski jump in Garmisch -Partenkirchen final.
Activity on TV
When the private television channel RTL at the beginning of the new millennium secured the rights to broadcast selected Jumping, Thoma was engaged as an expert. He hosted many years, together with Günther Jauch, with which he was also nominated twice for the German Television Award, the RTL Ski Jumping transmissions. For his work as an expert Thoma won the Golden Victoria and in 2002 with the Bavarian Television Award two media awards. After RTL retired in the summer of 2007 by the transfer of further Jumping, Thoma changed with the start of the 2007/2008 season as an expert of the ski jumping events for ARD.
Among other things, Thoma working on different projects (golf / ski jumping ) and his knowledge of 15 years of high performance sport and years of television moderation as a speaker at seminars, incentives, conventions and sports courses continue under the motto: " Whoever keeps a hand of the past, only has a freely for the future. "
Further commitment
Along with Harry Bodmer organized Thoma charity tournaments for a good cause. The proceeds goes to the Playing Help eV addition, he has served as keynote speaker and speaker presentations on the topics of motivation, sports and success.
Achievements
World Cup wins
World Cup rankings
Private life
With his ex-wife Manuela Thoma Thoma Adofo has two children. With his girlfriend Mandana Daub he has a daughter.