Kobayashi also wins in Bischofshofen

Ryoyu Kobayashi staggered after the first round of the third tournament in Bischofshofen, he had lost 5.7 points of his lead of 13.2 points over Marius Lindvik. But in the final, the cool Japanese played his whole class again. He easily overtook the Norwegian with a perfect jump and has a lead of 17.9 points or 10 meters before the tour finals.

The prospects are good that Kobayashi will succeed in ski jumping history on Thursday. Three ski jumpers have so far managed to win all four competitions of a Four Hills Tournament: 2001/02 Sven Hannawald, 2017/18 Kamil Stoch and 2018/19 Kobayashi. The Japanese would probably have conquered Bergisel on Tuesday, but the third jump of the 70th Four Hills Tournament had to be postponed by a day due to a foehn storm and relocated to Bischofshofen. This increased Kobayashi’s chances, as Innsbruck is notorious for its turbulent jumps. If so, a coup was most likely possible on the Bergisel.

And now the Four Hills Tournament is, like 14 years ago, a Three Hills Tournament, and back then there were two competitions in Bischofshofen. Kobayashi loves flying and long jumps, it is not for nothing that he describes Bischofshofen as his favorite hill of the tour. He was here last summer, training with his trainer Richard Schallert in Europe for a month. Schallert says he hasn’t seen a single bad flight Kobayashi in all summer. Its first jump on Wednesday must have been a real outlier downwards.

Kobayashi loves shopping and fine things, he will have already thought about what can be done with the prize money on the tour. Quite a lot, because there has never been as much to earn as this year. But it has to be said that the organizers were pretty stingy. Until now, the prize money for the overall winner was 20,000 francs, which has been quintupled to 100,000 francs. With four daily wins and the prize money from the qualification, Kobayashi can reach a total of 152,800 francs.

Killian Peier suffered a severe setback. After surviving the cruciate ligament rupture, he had a terrific comeback, Toni Innauer, the 1980 Olympic champion and today’s TV expert on ZDF, saw Peier as one of the three tour favorites. But the entry into Oberstdorf failed, the French-speaking country wanted too much, and lost its looseness. He caught himself in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but then the second setback followed in Innsbruck. The relocation of jumping to Bischofshofen must have bothered him. The Bergisel is his hill, here he reached his first top 10 ranking in the World Cup three years ago in seventh place, a few weeks later he was third in the World Cup.

The approach to the hill was almost perfect on Monday, eleventh in the first, third in the second training, third in the qualification. But then came the hair dryer.

In Bischofshofen, Peier only achieved 26th place, in the overall standings he still remained twelfth, but the gap to the targeted top 10 places has grown significantly. Right behind Peier is his team mate Gregor Deschwanden in the overall standings, he can achieve his best tour result by far. Both were not satisfied and still were lucky. They only reached the final because of the knockout mode used in the first round of the tour; in a normal competition they would not have been in the top 30.