Geiger asserts himself in yellow
Fortunately, Eisenbichler is 5.5 centimeters short
02/25/2022, 8:24 p.m
Germany’s ski jumpers just barely missed the podium in the dense turbulence of Lahti. Markus Eisenbichler is fourth, Karl Geiger fifth. He remains the World Cup leader. The Horngacher team looks competitive for the team competition on Saturday.
Karl Geiger smiled at the camera after his second jump, Markus Eisenbichler clenched his fist with satisfaction: The German ski jumping aces narrowly missed the podium at the World Cup in Lahti, Finland, but were happy after the first competition after the Olympic Games. Geiger defended the overall leader’s yellow jersey with a strong fifth place, Eisenbichler was happy with two good flights and fourth place. “It’s a cool result, the competition was extremely tight. There were two good jumps from me, everything in balance,” said Geiger, who with jumps of 122 and 127.5 meters beat his toughest opponent Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan (seventh place). kept at a distance. He extended his lead in the World Cup to twelve points.
For Geiger and Eisenbichler, however, the podium was more than within reach on Friday with light snowfall. At half-time Eisenbichler was still in third place, but in the end he was only 0.1 points short of his fifth podium finish this winter. “I just really like the hill, I’m fine when I don’t have to worry so much,” said Eisenbichler, for whom everything went “picco bello” at the start in Lahti. Geiger lined up directly behind – 0.5 points behind means less than half a meter behind in third place.
Friend is well recovered
Team Olympic champion Stefan Kraft from Austria flew undeterred to his second World Cup victory this season. With a jump of 131 meters in the second round, there was no doubt that he would win the day. Norway’s Halvor Egner Granerud came in second and Poland’s Piotr Zyla was third. At half time, the Austrian Ulrich Wohlmentioned was surprisingly in the lead, but the 27-year-old slipped down to sixth place after a weak second round.
Severin Freund and Constantin Schmid rounded off the good result of the DSV-Adler. Freund came out strong from his Olympic break and convinced with 15th place. “I used the time with my family and came back rested,” said Freund, who was particularly “happy” with his second jump. Directly behind him was Olympic driver Constantin Schmid.
The Beijing participants Stephan Leyhe (105.8) and Pius Paschke missed the leap into the second round. Paschke in particular disappointed with a jump of 100.5 meters and doesn’t seem to be an option for the team competition on Saturday. After the team competition, the team of national coach Stefan Horngacher has another individual on Sunday’s program in Lahti.