Andreas Wellinger showed a mixed performance in Lake Placid. In the end he was still able to gain points on World Cup leader Stefan Kraft.
Ski jumper Andreas Wellinger clearly missed the podium in Lake Placid, but unexpectedly gained points in a wind lottery in the fight for the overall World Cup. Six days after his victory at the home game in Willingen, the two-time Olympic champion from Ruhpolding had to settle for seventh place in the surprise victory of the Slovenian Lovro Kos at the 1980 Olympic facility.
World Cup leader Stefan Kraft from Austria, who led after the first round in Lake Placid and was on the verge of his seventh win of the season, was hit by a gust after the jump, then landed very early and fell back to 24th place.
In his first World Cup victory, Kos was just ahead of the Japanese tour winner Ryoyu Kobayashi (278.1) and Norway’s Olympic champion Marius Lindvik (277.8) with jumps of 123.5 and 125.0 m (278.9 points). For Kraft, around 119 m would have been enough to win in the second round – he didn’t get beyond 104.5 m.
Hoffmann with best career performance
Wellinger (270.5/12.0+121.5) was around four meters short of the podium after two mediocre runs. In the overall World Cup he now has 987 points, moving closer to Kraft (1136), Kobayashi (976) is third. For a win you get 100 points, there are still an impressive 15 individual competitions left.
Felix Hoffmann (Goldlauter) came in as the surprisingly second-best German in eleventh place, achieving by far his best career result (so far 27th place). Karl Geiger came in twelfth, Philipp Raimund (both Oberstdorf) came in 16th, Pius Paschke (Kiefersfelden) was only 25th. Stephan Leyhe (Willingen) missed the final of the best 30 in 33rd place.
There is another super team competition in Lake Placid on Saturday evening (11 p.m. CET). Another individual competition will take place on Sunday (3:15 p.m. CET).