The situation of stick shooters in the Weilheim-Schongau district is difficult in Corona times.
Training or competition?
None of it!
And the social aspect in the clubs also suffers.
District - The sports field is cordoned off, the clubhouse locked.
Even in the stadium in Peißenberg the ice was thawed.
“Nothing is working at all at the moment,” complains Josef Schwab.
Neither championships nor tournaments, let alone training, are possible.
“We are practically on hold.” Not only the department head of the SV Polling gets a little depression when he ponders the situation of the stick shooters in the Weilheim-Schongau district.
It is true that there are regular games on asphalt in summer too, but the cold season of the year before the corona pandemic brought people together regularly on the tracks, ponds and lakes.
Now the government's contact restrictions prevent the people from meeting to look after “a Bavarian cultural asset”, ”as Olaf Kügler describes it.
In recent years, the SV Raisting division head has always successfully organized a village championship in the community near Lake Ammersee.
Although his department only has 20 members, the Raistinger championships crowded like herrings in a tin can.
Kügler counted up to 50 players, who were spread over a dozen teams.
“One or two interested people always got stuck,” reports Kügler.
The tournament has mostly paid off for him and his division.
But there will be no games this year and Kügler cannot win any new members.
Stick shooting is not just a sport, it's a cultural asset
The youngsters are also staying at TSV Peiting this year.
Nowhere in Pfaffenwinkel is stock shooting at such a high level as above the Lech.
The men play in the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga and in the major league.
The ladies are also located in the German upper house.
The only problem this winter is the promotion of young people because of the pandemic.
“You lose a year, probably a year and a half,” supposes Alexander Vöst.
He regrets that the young talents in particular are not developing as well as the generations before them.
"These will be weak vintages," fears the head of the Peitinger Stockschützen.
The 30-year-old, who belongs to the German national team's B squad, can study the effects of the lockdown on himself.
Since even the Bundesliga teams of the TSV are not allowed to train, he currently has no opportunity to hone his technique or his movements.
These things can be corrected later when regular practice is possible again.
“But you lose the toughness of the competition,” explains Vöst.
The head of department anticipates that many players will have problems concentrating if they have to go through five games in a good two and a half hours.
In addition, he expects that many players will also lose the mental strength to make the right throw in the game.
"None of us will start as strong as we left off," he prophesies.
Even Bundesliga teams are not allowed to train
They could still live with it in raising or polling, after all, the sporting demands there are not that high.
But there is a risk of a much greater loss: "Corona has ruined the whole of village life," says Kügler.
But his division, which he describes as a “family group”, is currently in a coma.
Contact with one another falls asleep.
“Just work and go home,” Kügler sums up his current existence, which does not differ significantly from that of his club colleagues.
“Something is missing in life.” Josef Schwab notices that too.
“Everything is dead”, he states, “the whole club life suffers from it”.
Of the 84 members, all of them have stayed with the crowd so far, but somehow agony is spreading.
"In the meantime you have got used to doing nothing", says Schwab of a precarious state.
"I would be happy if I could meet a few people."
They also hope for renewed momentum in Peiting.
If not on ice, it should be played on asphalt again in the spring.
"We have completed the winter", clarifies Vöst.
However, a certain amount of uncertainty remains: Last autumn, the Peitinger team was still expecting to be able to host a European Cup for women and men at the end of November 2020.
It turned out differently.
According to the experiences of winter, Josef Schwab's forecast for the coming months is correspondingly cautious: "I assume that summer will also fall into the water."
