Four Hills Tournament: Ryoyu Kobayashi clearly flies away from Andreas Wellinger in the qualification

A bitter dampener in tour qualification
Kobayashi clearly flies away from Wellinger

January 5, 2024, 5:41 p.m

In the overall ranking of the Four Hills Tournament, the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi and Germany’s top jumper Andreas Wellinger are very close to each other. But in the qualification for the final competition in Bischofshofen, Kobayashi made a big statement and is now the clear favorite.

Andreas Wellinger clearly lost the last showdown before the showdown for victory in the Four Hills Tournament against his big opponent Ryoyu Kobayashi and showed weaknesses in the qualification for Bischofshofen. The Olympic champion only came in ninth place with 128 meters (144.3 points). “I completely missed the take-off table. I was 1.15 meters too late. Maybe go to Ikea and get a slightly longer table tomorrow,” Wellinger commented on his botched attempt. “It was a bit wooden today, I had planned it differently,” the 28-year-old continued on ARD, “but that doesn’t mean anything.” And national coach Stefan Horngacher also commented briefly: “That’s not tragic.”

Tour leader Kobayashi (Japan) flew ten meters further than his German pursuer with 138.0 (162.6) and confidently won the preliminary round ahead of World Cup leader Stefan Kraft from Austria (154.8). Before the last jumping on Saturday (4.30 p.m./ARD and Eurosport as well as in the live ticker at ntv.de) Two-time tour champion Kobayashi leads with 4.8 points, the equivalent of 2.67 meters, ahead of Wellinger. Behind the two big opponents, Jan Hörl and Kraft are also in the draw for the overall victory. But the Austrians are already well behind the leading duo.

Wellinger, however, has to surpass himself in order to bag the first German tour victory since Sven Hannawald in 2001/02. But he doesn’t want to put pressure on himself: “I just want to jump to the hill size twice, then there will be a result, and then we’ll see how it turns out.” While everything seemed very easy for the Japanese, things weren’t really that easy for Wellinger. “I have to work my way in here,” said Wellinger, who tinkered a lot in the two training sessions before qualifying, while Kobayashi was happy to forego further experiments after a jump.

Geiger appears to have only improved slightly

However, Wellinger knows how weak training and qualification on the Paul-Außerleitner-Schanze can be – from his own painful experience: “Six years ago I won the qualification in Bischofshofen, then couldn’t sleep and was eliminated.” Pius Paschke was the second best German with 14th place and 127.5 meters in poorer conditions. Karl Geiger showed a slight improvement compared to the third competition in Innsbruck and came 17th with 129.5 meters. Former tour bronze medalist Stephan Leyhe landed in 18th place with 128.5 meters. Philipp Raimund made it into the top 50 competition in 40th place despite a weak jump of 122.0 meters.

Shortly before Christmas, an avalanche slid into the run-out of the Paul-Außerleitner ski jump in Pongau. The landing slope and the run-out were damaged and had to be repaired in a short time. Just four days later, the organizers had fixed the problems in Bischofshofen.