“It wasn’t optimal from Karle”
Kobayashi flies past Geiger twice
02/27/2022, 9:20 p.m
This time, Karl Geiger has no chance against a dream jump by Japan’s high-flyer Ryoyu Kobayashi. He first has to give up the yellow jersey of the leader in the overall World Cup. At the World Cup in Finland there is a mood like it hasn’t been for a long time.
Karl Geiger shrugged his shoulders helplessly, then Germany’s best ski jumper crept out of the outrun somewhat disappointed. The 29-year-old from the Allgäu lost important points in the fight for victory in the overall World Cup in Lahti, Finland, and had to hand over the yellow jersey to his long-term rival Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan. “It’s a bit annoying,” Geiger commented on what he saw as the rather sobering flight day, but put it into perspective: “It was a solid competition, that’s okay.”
Kobayashi won with the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud on equal points and is 43 points ahead of Geiger, who is going into the final weeks of the season as a hunter. “We ticked off Lahti. Now we’re going to Lillehammer, then we’ll continue there,” said Geiger. National coach Stefan Horngacher explained: “It wasn’t optimal, Karle’s competition. We have to do a precise analysis again. We have to focus on ski jumping, not on the yellow jersey.” Austria’s Stefan Kraft completed the day’s podium in third place. Markus Eisenbichler was eighth this time.
The day before, Geiger, Eisenbichler, Severin Freund and Constantin Schmid had finished third in the team competition and confirmed their performance from the Winter Games in Beijing. Only Olympic champions Austria and Slovenia were stronger again. Eisenbichler was particularly fascinated by the atmosphere and the crowded stands in the traditional winter sports resort. “I’m really happy that so many people are there and the atmosphere is back. It’s nice,” said the 30-year-old. The previous highlights of the season, the Four Hills Tournament (no spectators) and the Olympics (hardly any spectators) had much less atmosphere to offer.
Legend Ahonen makes mini “comeback”
Sometimes Eisenbichler was difficult to understand on the ARD microphone because the party song “Who Let The Dogs Out” roared so loudly from the speakers in the background. Because the ski club in Lahti was celebrating its anniversary, even the 44-year-old local hero Janne Ahonen jumped off the hill again. With plenty of running up, Ahonen flew almost as far as the top athletes. The spectators cheered enthusiastically, five judges showed the symbolic maximum score of 20.0 directly in the outrun.
After the partly euphoric pictures from Lahti, things should get more serious and complicated again for the world association Fis in the coming days. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Norway will not allow Russian athletes to host the upcoming Raw Air Tour and Ski Flying World Championships in Vikersund. The Fis is currently taking the position of letting the athletes participate under the Fis flag and, in the event of victory, with the Fis anthem. “They are part of our family. They are people who live with the other athletes for a whole year. We would like to support the athletes,” said Sandro Pertile, ski jumping race director. He emphasized that Fis alone and no national association was responsible for the international competition.