Skispinger Philipp Raimund was unable to capitalize on his lead from the first round in Engelberg – but Felix Hoffmann jumped onto the podium. The winning streak of the Slovenian high-flyer Domen Prevc was surprisingly broken.
It was the last World Cup competition before the Four Hills Tournament – and the DSV Eagles presented themselves well prepared. The day’s winner was Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan, who finished just ahead of Prevc. Hoffmann celebrated third place with a great second jump and also overtook his teammate Raimund, who ultimately came fourth.
Horngacher sees his team well prepared for the tour
National coach Stefan Horngacher rejoiced on ZDF: “I’m very satisfied, we have two jumpers who are at the top and can hopefully get through the tournament in a stable manner.” Hoffmann was happy: “It was difficult and changeable – but of course I’m very pleased that it was enough for third place in the end.”
The jumping suffered from difficult external conditions right from the start. In the first 20 minutes of the first round, it had to be interrupted again and again because the constantly changing wind – sometimes tailwind, sometimes coming from the front – endangered the safety of the jumpers. Gusts of sometimes more than five meters per second also repeatedly led to longer tests of patience for athletes and spectators.
Embacher jumps hill record – and misses the top ten
The jury modified the inrun several times to get a reasonable competition back – and suddenly the fans had a first highlight: As the Austrian Stephan Embacher raced down the jump, the wind stopped briefly – and Embacher set a hill record with 145 meters.
After this extreme flight, he had a pretty bad landing, so he only got grades between 15 and 16. Since, unlike the many other athletes, he didn’t receive any plus points for the wind, the best distance of all time in Engelberg didn’t even mean he was in the lead: Embacher was initially in seventh place and was only in twelfth place at the end of the two rounds.
Raimund is initially level on points with Prevc in front
Philipp Raimund mastered the changeable conditions best in the first round, and in the end he even ended up in first place with exactly the same number of points as season flyer Domen Prevc. from Slovenia. Felix Hoffmann also did really well in the first round, going onto the jump shortly after Embacher, but had the wind at his back again. He qualified for the second round in sixth place – and came third with a flight of 132 meters with good posture scores and lots of wind points.
For the other two Germans in Engelberg, the jumping didn’t exactly go well. Luca Roth found himself in 28th place after a weaker second jump, Pius Paschke even missed the second round.