Andreas Wellinger ensured a ray of hope at the end of the World Ski jumping World Cup in Sapporo, while Pius Paschke ended the World Cup general rehearsal with a severe setback. Olympic champion Wellinger was ninth in the new victory of the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi the only German top 10 place in the 1972 Olympic city.
As 31, Paschke missed the second round and drives with little fresh self -confidence to the title fights in Trondheim (February 26 to March 9). Meanwhile, Noriaki Kasai once again wrote ski jumping history with his 579th World Cup.
Less than 24 hours after his superior victory in the first jumping, his compatriot Kobayashi made it exciting this time. After second place at half -time, the three -time tour winner passed the Norwegian Marius Lindvik and secured his 34th World Cup victory with 278.4 points (132.0+137.0 m).
Kobayashi is now a seventh seventh in the “eternal” leaderboard in front of Jens Weißflog (33). Lindvik (274.2) became second ahead of his compatriot Johann Andre Forfang (268.7).
Andreas Wellinger falls back in the second round
Wellinger, only 24th on Saturday, was still fourth after the first round with a strong jump to 129.0 m. Instead of the podium, it went back at 121.5 m. Eleven meters finally lacked the podium, which the German jumps missed for the 15th time in a row. A longer doldrum within one season last existed in the winter of 2007/08. In addition to Wellinger, the German team only reached Stephan Leyhe (24th) and Felix Hoffmann (26th) the second round of the top 30.
The five -time winner Paschke was missing after a messed up jump in the final. On Saturday he was the 23rd best German when the DSV eagle had conceded their worst World Cup result for 14 years. Paschke recently left out the World Cup in Lake Placid and trained in Planica, and he did not find his way out of the crisis.
The 52 -year -old Kasai, who had left the first jump in the qualification, survived the preliminary round this time and came in 45th place. Kasai had his debut in Sapporo in the World Cup in December 1988. He holds the records for most World Cup starts (now 579) and as the oldest participant (52), oldest jumper in the points (both 51 years), oldest Springer on the podium (44) and oldest winner (42). He cannot hope for staying in the World Cup team, on Sunday he was only eight-best Japanese.