Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Eisenbichler with a giant sentence
Kobayashi dominates violinists in the snowstorm
The Four Hills Tournament goes into the penultimate act not as planned at the Bergisel in Innsbruck, but in Bischofshofen: Karl Geiger barely missed the podium in the driving snow, the chances of third place in the overall standings remain. Ryoyu Kobayashi can create something historical.
After a strong flight show in the snowdrift of Bischofshofen, Karl Geiger can hope for the tour podium again, but Markus Eisenbichler’s small chance of the really big coup has failed. While the Japanese devil Ryoyu Kobayashi is reaching for the historic second Grand Slam with another victory of the day, Geiger convinced in the catch-up jump of the “Three Hills Tournament” as a strong fourth – he missed the podium by less than a meter. Eisenbichler had to be content with eighth place.
“It’s a bit of a shame that it didn’t quite work out with third place. But it was a good competition, we’re moving forward,” said Geiger on ARD. Eisenbichler said without much disappointment: “Everything is fine. The first jump was a bit early, the second better. I’m actually quite satisfied.” National coach Stefan Horngacher summed up: “Karl showed that he can jump right at the front. It didn’t quite work out for Markus.”
In the overall tour standings, the six-time world champion Eisenbichler will go into the final on Thursday in the same place as fourth (5.30 p.m. / ARD and Eurosport). For him like the almost equal fifth violinist, third place is less than three meters away. But both of them can tick off the first German tour victory since Sven Hannawald 20 years ago.
Fog, continuous rain, snow
Kobayashi prevailed with jumps of 137.0 and 137.5 meters (291.3) ahead of the Norwegian Marius Lindvik (286.6), who had led after the first round. Third was Lindvik’s compatriot Halvor Egner Granerud (282.4). With the equivalent of ten meters ahead of Lindvik before the final, Kobayashi can chill the sparkling wine – he had already celebrated the overall victory in 2018/19 with four daily victories.
Geiger, who fell short of the huge expectations on the German tour stations, was not even a meter short of the day’s podium after flights on 133.0 and 136.0 meters (280.8 points). Eisenbichler (270.3 / 130.5 + 140.5) marched far forward from 16th place in the second round.
Team world champion Severin Freund in twelfth and Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger in 15th achieved their best tour results. Stephan Leyhe came 20th on his 30th birthday. Constantin Schmid and Pius Paschke were eliminated in the first round. On the day after the wind chaos on Bergisel, the conditions were regular, but not really pleasant: Fog and continuous rain, which later turned into snow, made for an even more dreary atmosphere than anyway – spectators were not allowed in Bischofshofen either.
Geiger and Co. demanded a lot from the tight schedule on the last two days of the tour with up to eight jumps. In order to recharge their batteries and not have to wait in the dreary container village at the ski jump, the DSV-Adler withdrew to the team hotel in St. Johann im Pongau, ten kilometers away, during the two-hour break between qualification and competition – and started the first round well recovered.
The qualification held in Innsbruck on Monday was no longer valid, as the preliminary round had to take place on the same hill as the competition. On Monday and Wednesday, Kobayashi won the qualification and received double prize money. Two qualifying victories for the same jumping – probably the strangest among the Japanese’s record to date.