Team competition in Poland: a few centimeters are missing for ski jumpers to win

The German ski jumpers were worried behind the gang, in the end less than 20 centimeters were missing to victory: Pius Paschke, Stephan Leyhe, Markus Eisenbichler and final jumper Karl Geiger took second place in the thrilling team competition in Poland, which was influenced by difficult wind conditions. Only very narrowly they had to admit defeat to the victorious Austrians on Saturday in Wisla. After the first round, the quartet of national coach Stefan Horngacher was still in fourth place. Third place went to the Slovenians, who had led before the last jump.

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In front of several thousand enthusiastic fans, who mostly celebrated a big ski jumping party with loud stadium music and trumpets without distance and mask, the Germans did not get along so well at the beginning and were also unlucky. The difficult conditions and non-optimal jumps came together and ensured that the team of the German Ski Association was only in fourth place at half-time. After his jump to 107 meters, Eisenbichler shook his head angrily. But nothing was lost yet.

"Today is a difficult day, everyone has to make two decent jumps first," Geiger said after the first round in the ARD and added confidently: "So let's wait and see.“ The colonel should be right. In the second round, Paschke (122.5 meters) and Leyhe (120.5) brought the Germans closer to first place. Eisenbichler followed an emotionally cheered set to 130 meters and the Geiger, who has been so constant so far this winter, almost even completed the victory with his second jump to 125 meters.

Especially Geiger and Eisenbichler show an impressive early form in this still young season. This winter, which offers numerous highlights in the Four Hills Tournament, the Winter Games in Beijing and the Ski Flying World Championships, among others, you can expect them again. In four individual jumps so far, the two Bavarian friends had given the German team five podiums. After the first team jumping in 2021/22, the individual competition continues this Sunday.

Meanwhile, David Siegel won the first ski jumping on the big Olympic hill of Beijing. The junior world Champion of 2016 from Baiersbronn won the competition in the second-class Continental Cup with jumps to 131 and 129.5 meters. On the futuristic ski jump in Zhangjiakou, which will be completed in December 2020 about 200 kilometers northwest of Beijing, four decisions will be made at the Winter Games in February, two of them in the Nordic Combined. The neighboring small ski jump was also officially inaugurated on Saturday. In the women's Continental Cup, Carina Vogt, who became the first Olympic champion in history in Sochi in 2014, took third place. The victory went to the Russian Maria Yakovleva.