Friday December 31, 2021
Second jump of the tour
Eisenbichler beats favorites in Garmisch qualification
With a strong jump, Markus Eisenbichler surprisingly wins the qualification for the second competition of the Four Hills Tournament. Overall leader Ryoyu Kobayashi is also convincing, as is World Cup leader Karl Geiger. A former tour winner experienced a huge disappointment in Garmisch.
The six-time ski jumping world champion Markus Eisenbichler has won the qualification for the New Year’s competition of the 70th Four Hills Tournament in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Eisenbichler landed at 137.0 meters on New Year’s Eve and, like World Cup leader Karl Geiger (135.5 meters), can look forward to third place with a good feeling for the first sporting highlight of 2022 on tomorrow Saturday (2 p.m. / ZDF, Eurosport and in the live ticker at ntv.de) look.
“At first I would not have thought that the jump would be so good. It keeps getting better and more trust is pouring in, I’m happy,” said Eisenbichler on ZDF and wished “a nice slide”. Geiger was also satisfied. “I made good use of the rest day. The day was really good, that fits,” said the 28-year-old and was happy for his friend: “The fact that the team-mate is in the front is a boost.” National coach Stefan Horngacher was happy about a “great end to the old year”. That was “positive, very positive,” said the Austrian.
Nine Germans make it into the final
Geiger is in fifth place in the overall standings, with 6.1 points behind the leading Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi (134.0 meters), who finished second in the qualification. Eisenbichler is in seventh place exactly 20.9 points back. World champion Stefan Kraft surprisingly missed the qualification as 59th, the Austrian has to bury all hopes for a tour. In the 2014/15 season he had won the overall standings.
A total of nine DSV eagles will take part in the 100th New Year’s competition in history. Stephan Leyhe was ninth, ex-world champion Severin Freund confirmed his good form in 17th. Constantin Schmid in 20th and Pius Paschke in 29th easily made it through to the qualification. Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger is back. At the start in Oberstdorf, the 26-year-old had just missed qualification as 51st, but this time it was just 47th. “It’s definitely a relief. It’s a privilege to be there,” he said.
Justin Lisso (40th) and Felix Hoffmann (45th) made it into the competition from the six-member national group that was not yet in action at the start of the tour. Since Sven Hannawald on January 1st, 2002, no German jumper has won at Gudiberg. A few days later, Hannawald also made the last German overall victory on the tour perfect.