Stephan Leyhe, Titisee-Neustadt, 18.01.2020
He wanted to keep everyone happy, but today he fell from 2nd place, and tying with Consti for 5th just didn’t satisfy him anymore.
Stephan was… exhausted. He was nothing more than simply tired, very very tired and on the verge of falling asleep right there and then. The only thing that was helping him stand up were his skis, which he used as support while taking pictures with the fans. He felt terrible for the people that took photos with him. He couldn’t manage to put up a more convincing smile, even though he really wanted to. He knew people would talk about it too. They would theorise, they would guess, make up rumors. “Why does Stephan Leyhe look so tired?”. He really wanted to explain that he wasn’t sick, and that nothing had happened, and that he was fine, but he didn’t have the energy to even write a post for his Instagram. He groaned while extending his hand with his phone over to Karl, who was now sitting on his bed, scrolling through his own social media. Stephan was lying face first, on his bed, very ready to go to sleep. Him and Karl agreed they’d room together as long as Markus was gone, since Stephan needed to escape from Pius. There was nothing wrong with him it was just that – Stephan didn’t know him. At all. He didn’t feel comfortable talking to him about his problems, so they’d usually just sit in silence until one of them brought up the weather conditions during the competitions. And for god’s sake, for how long can you talk about weather conditions until it gets boring?
Karl looked over at Stephan’s extended hand with a puzzled expression, which unfortunately the older man wasn’t able to notice, but still feeling the weight of the phone on his hand, he shook it up and down.
“Write my Instagram post for me, please.” He said in a begging tone, while Karl reluctantly took the phone out of his hand.
“You have gotten lazy recently, haven’t you, Mr. 3rd place in Titisee 5.” Karl joked around, but his attempt at humour was only met with another groan from Stephan.
“Fine, what’s the password.”
“I know you know the password, don’t pretend that you don’t.” Stephan turned onto his side, looking at what his teammate was doing. Karl glanced over at him and typed the password in, unlocking the phone. He opened the Instagram app and looked over at Stephan.
“What photo do you want?” He asked and began scrolling through the gallery.
“The one with Consti, where I’m smiling. I want to keep up appearances.” Stephan stretched over his bed and stared up at the ceiling. “And for the caption write ‘Double 5th place for #Team GER. We are #winterfans #titiseeneustadt #heimweltcup #top #morgen #schwarzwald #happy’.” He finally finished, and Karl only chuckled.
“Do we really need the #happy?” Karl looked at his teammate yet again. Stephan turned his head and rolled his eyes. “Fine fine. Here, posted.” The World Cup leader gave the phone back to his older teammate. “Now speak up. What’s going on?” This made Stephan wake up a little. He knew playing dumb wouldn’t work with Karl. He could see right through anything Stephan would try to put up.
Karl’s question was a good one. What was going on? Stephan tried to put it all together in his head. First of all, he was just tired. Four hills wasn’t so long ago, and they really didn’t get much rest between Bischofshofen, Predazzo and now. It was a miracle that his jumps in the last two locations were as good as they were. Well, less a miracle, and more Stephan pushing himself to his limits. That was the second thing. Since Richi and Eisei were gone, and no one was really sure when they would come back, the spotlight of the German team fell onto him and Karl. There was a lot of pressure on them to not only do good enough, the fans wanted them to win. Stephan tried today, he really tried, but during his second jump he really couldn’t push himself to do more. His legs were refusing to cooperate. He really didn’t want to let anyone down, but he also didn’t want to completely burn himself out. He wanted to keep everyone happy, but today he fell from 2nd place, and tying with Consti for 5th just didn’t satisfy him anymore. Right now, Stephan was exhausted both physically and mentally, and his expression must’ve said so too. Stephan basically spilled all of these thoughts out to Karl and as he looked up at the World Cup leader, he only tilted his head and sighed.
“Alright… I’m exhausted by all of this too. Do you want to hug?” Stephan didn’t need anymore of an invitation. He lazily climbed out of bed and basically dragged himself onto his teammates. Karl wrapped his arms around Stephan, with one gently brushing through his hair. “I know this is all hard. It was way easier when Richard and Markus took some of the pressure off us, but we have to manage somehow. I’m feeling burned out too, but you my dear look like someone who’s just been taken off the gallows. I didn’t think this would be so hard on you.” Karl started in a caring tone, patting his teammate on the head every so often. Stephan sniffled a little. He wanted to cry, but having Karl next to him made him feel better. The younger continued. “I know you care about what people say and think a lot, but I have a suggestion for you. Just have fun tomorrow. Don’t think about the crowd, don’t think about what the media will say, just think about doing what you have the energy for and having fun. That’s what sport is about, right? Doing your best and enjoying your work.” Karl finished and only Stephan nodded gently.
“Ok… I’ll do that.” Stephan said softly, almost in a whisper. Karl smiled and finally exhaled. The older man didn’t even realise his teammate was holding his breath.
“I’d ask you if you’d like to sleep next to me tonight, but seeing as that wouldn’t give the both of us much rest, I can only suggest that we push our beds together.” Stephan felt like he agreed to that idea way too quickly. The two men got up and pushed their beds closer to one another. Then they returned to the positions they just left, the only difference being that they had more bed space to use. Karl held Stephan for a moment before anyone spoke up.
“How do you do that?” This time, Stephan spoke a little bit louder than before.
“You mean, how do I get by?” Karl asked, just to be sure, and his teammate nodded. “It… takes a strong head. You need to be able to quite literally not care about anything apart from what’s important to you. It takes time to get used to it. I’m not the best at explaining this, but as soon as Markus get’s back, I’ll ask him to help you out.”
“Don’t worry, you helped me out loads anyway.” Stephan extended his arms as well, and wrapped them around Karl. The younger man pulled him closer. “I miss Markus. And Andi. And Richi.” Karl chuckled, and pulled his older teammate even closer than before.
“I miss them too. I wish they were here.”
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