Four Hills Tournament starts
German double victory in qualifying at the start of Oberstdorf
December 28, 2023, 5:52 p.m
A great start for the DSV Eagles: At the start of the Four Hills Tournament there is qualification in Oberstdorf – and the German ski jumpers are in impressive form. Andreas Wellinger wins just ahead of Karl Geiger, but the top favorite from Austria is lurking just behind.
Andreas Wellinger first, Karl Geiger second, Philipp Raimund fourth: The German ski jumpers impressively underlined their title ambitions at the overture of the 72nd Four Hills Tournament. The two-time Olympic champion Wellinger won the qualification in Oberstdorf in front of a record crowd of 16,300 fans with a jump of 135.0 m and goes into the competition on Friday as one of the favorites (5.15 p.m./ARD and Eurosport and in the live ticker on ntv.de).
“That was a great warm-up. These results are exceptionally good,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher on ARD. He actually saw the day as better exercise. “We haven’t jumped for seven days,” noted the Austrian. Then things immediately went smoothly again. Youngster Raimund was particularly enthusiastic about the atmosphere. “Totally awesome. I’m looking forward to tomorrow even more, but even today is already a mega backdrop,” said the 23-year-old.
Wellinger brought the crowd to a boil, becoming the first DSV eagle since Richard Freitag in 2017 to be at the top of the tour’s first showdown and collect prize money of 3,000 Swiss francs (approx. 3,200 euros).
Strong result for all DSV Adler
Pius Paschke (Kiefersfelden) in ninth place and Stephan Leyhe (Willingen), who was the “worst” German in twelfth, rounded off the strong result. Top favorite Stefan Kraft from Austria had to be content with 131.0 m and seventh place.
The Norwegian defending champion Halvor Egner Granerud did not get past 16th place. The three-time tour winner Kamil Stoch once again fell short of his former form in 37th place, the best of the Polish team, which was again weak, was world champion Piotr Zyla in 26th place.
There were only 58 jumpers at the start – there were only fewer in the history of the tour in 2020, when after the Polish team was temporarily excluded from Corona there were only 55 athletes. The most prominent of the eight “sorted out” was the Japanese Naoki Nakamura.