New hope in the fight for the overall World Cup for Andreas Wellinger? The Upper Bavarian fought for second place in the floodlit jumping in Lahti, Finland on Friday (March 1st, 2024). Stefan Kraft, on the other hand, falls from the sky. The victory goes to the Slovenian Lovro Kos.
Andreas Wellinger jumped to second place in the south of Finland. The best German ski jumper this winter was only beaten by Lovro Kos from Slovenia. Third place went to tour winner Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan.
“The second jump in particular was extremely good,” said Wellinger afterwards: “The conditions were difficult at the back.” For Stefan Kraft the competition was already over after the first round.
Will the fight for the crystal ball be exciting again?
The overall World Cup leader from Austria was caught by a gust during his jump and fell onto the slope at just 105 meters. Kobayashi and Kraft were both able to make up a lot of ground on Kraft, who still has a cushion of over 200 points.
Wellinger with an announcement after the first jump
At halftime, the Wellinger was in fourth place after 129.5 meters, only 3.2 points behind the leading Norwegian Marius Lindvik. Wellinger wasn’t really happy with his first jump and sent a confident message to the competition: “If I do my thing, the others can warm up.”
Promise kept – Wellinger defies winds
At first glance, Wellinger couldn’t follow up his words with action. The runner-up in the Four Hills Tournament landed at 126.5 meters in round two and couldn’t quite keep up with the competition’s distance chase. Lovro Kos, for example, moved from fifth to first place with 134 meters.
But how much Wellinger’s sentence was worth was shown by the last three jumpers: The Austrians Michael Haebock and Daniel Tschofenig as well as Lindvik coped significantly worse and slipped off the podium.
DSV team weak overall
Behind Wellinger, Stefan Leyhe and Pius Paschke came in eleventh and twelfth place. Philipp Raimund and Constantin Schmid had to be content with places 21 and 23. Karl Geiger had problems on the traditional Salpausselkä ski jump, only barely made it into the second round and had to settle for 27th place in the end.