Aviation giant Ryoyu Kobayashi
Andreas Wellinger’s strange challenger
January 5, 2024, 6:26 a.m
Ryoyu Kobayashi has already won the tour twice. He leads again before the final. Pursuer Andreas Wellinger appreciates his rival – even if he doesn’t exchange many words with him. And otherwise makes more of a secret about itself.
Press conferences with Andreas Wellinger’s great Four Hills Tournament rival Ryoyu Kobayashi have great entertainment value in their own way. When the front runner of the ski jump spectacle takes a seat after a podium to answer questions from the media, it follows a certain pattern. No matter how wordy and creative the question may be, Kobayashi’s answer is short, concise and very often quite meaningless. When asked what his relationship with Wellinger was like and whether he sometimes had coffee with him, the 27-year-old ski jumper simply said with a grin: “I don’t drink coffee.”
For Wellinger, too, the exceptionally quiet athlete is somewhat of a mystery. “He doesn’t talk too much to me either,” said the German hopeful, who is a good two and a half meters behind Kobayashi in second place before the tour finale in Bischofshofen (Saturday 4.30 p.m./ARD and Eurosport). Wellinger’s interpretation: “He doesn’t want to talk that much because he doesn’t want to say anything wrong.”
“Damn good ski jumper”
0.4 points: Noriaki Kasai in front of Janne Ahonen (1999). Winner: Ahonen
1.7 points: Daniel Andre Tande in front of Kamil Stoch (2017). Winner: Stoch
2.0 points: Jakub Janda in front of Ahonen (2005). Winner: Janda and Ahonen (equal on points)
4.8 points: Ryoyu Kobayashi in front of Andreas Wellinger (2023). Winner: open
9.1 points: Dawid Kubacki in front of Marius Lindvik (2020). Winner: Kubacki
9.4 points: Thomas Diethart in front of Simon Ammann (2014). Winner: Diethart
The Bavarian still finds his opponent likeable. “He’s a very, very calm and pleasant guy. You can have fun with him, even if it’s just non-verbal,” said the Bavarian. But what’s probably even more important and could become a problem for Wellinger: “He’s a damn good ski jumper.”
On this tour, Kobayashi is extremely consistent. Second place in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Innsbruck took him to the top of the prestigious event. This wasn’t necessarily hinted at before. In the World Cup, he only managed twelfth or 13th place. Before the season highlight in four acts, he only made it onto the podium once this season. Wellinger still counted him among the favorites from the start. After all, Kobayashi is a real touring expert.
He has already won it twice. In 2018/19 he even won all four competitions and relegated Markus Eisenbichler and Stephan Leyhe to second and third place. In 2021/22 he prevented second-placed Karl Geiger from succeeding with his victory in the overall World Cup. This time he shouldn’t become a spoilsport for the Eagles of the German Ski Association (DSV) again.
Flying visit to the pit lane
Kobayashi, who comes from Iwate Prefecture and began cross-country skiing at the age of eleven, loves fast and big cars. In photos on Instagram he poses next to high-horsepower cars. He stopped by the Red Bull Formula 1 team in the pit lane.
Kobayashi, who has been accompanied on tours by translator Markus Neitzel for years, once described himself as a “neo-Japanese” and thereby aroused great curiosity. However, he could not or did not want to explain the term when specifically asked. “I just used that word like that,” he said, once again getting a lot of laughs.
But what makes Kobayashi so strong? Why does he master the tour, with all its peculiarities and the many jumps in a short time, so well? Wellinger has a simple answer to this. “Maybe because he has to talk less than me,” he said and laughed.