WARSAW, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics bronze medalist Dawid Kubacki criticized the Polish Ski Association after they terminated a cooperation with ski jumping coach Michal Dolezal.
Dolezal's deal was valid until the end of the season. The Czech announced that it wouldn't be extended on Saturday as "both sides, me and the federation, made that decision."
The Polish Ski Association didn't hide that they held talks with former China ski jumping team coach Mika Kojonkoski and the Austrian Alexander Pointner but they didn't reach an agreement.
The Polish ski jumpers are deeply disappointed with Dolezal's leaving. On Sunday Kubacki, who won a bronze medal in the normal hill at the Beijing Olympics, hit at the federation.
"I cannot fully accept that this is the end. For us, the athletes, it's even hard to talk about that. I don't want to start pointing fingers at anyone by telling them who is responsible for that, but the reality is we don't have a coach. We don't know what will happen in the near future," Kubacki was quoted as saying in Sunday's interview for Eurosport.
"It seems to me that we had a communication problem. I think that our coach didn't get a chance to show what everything should look like. Dolezal's departure will hurt me for some time," the 32-year-old added.
Kubacki's teammates Kamil Stoch and Piotr Zyla shared similar feelings as they also would like to continue the work with the Czech coach.
"Actually departure isn't a proper word. You have to call it by its name. The coach was informed that he would not be renewing his contract, which in my opinion isn't a good move. We had a very difficult season and a lot of mistakes were made," Stoch claimed.
"In my mind I have a lot of things that affected how I jumped. The mistakes were made by everyone. Starting from the top, I mean the president of the federation, through the secretary-general, the sports director, the entire training staff to us, the ski jumpers. I also wasted a few chances to get better results," the three-time Olympic champion added.
The gold medalist from the FIS World Championship Lahti 2017 Piotr Zyla accused the federation of a lack of strategy.
"It's better to save your words on what the federation is doing. The season is practically over, we don't have a coach, we don't have a plan, we have nothing," Zyla commented on Sunday.
"I know from the media that the Polish Ski Association cannot afford other coaches, while Dolezal was fired. It is known that the season didn't go according to our plan, but the motivation and willingness to work were still there," he added. ■
