No podium in the only team competition before the World Cup: things aren’t going well for the DSV Adler in Poland either.
Zakopane/Cologne (SID) Pius Paschke waved to the audience with a pained smile and somewhat annoyed – Germany’s ski jumping ace took his tour frustration with him to Poland. With the top man still weakening, the German team only managed fourth place in the team competition in Zakopane. Around five and a half weeks before the World Cup, the DSV eagles are still looking for the ease of flying.
“It’s hard to say, it was difficult here from the first jump,” said the five-time season winner Paschke on ARD after the DSV Adler, with him as the weakest jumper, landed far behind the Austrians, who dominated as they had at the Four Hills Tournament: “It I’m missing free flying, so I have to take the next step. It’s a shame, of course – because I didn’t help the team much.”
Strong violinist is not enough
Despite a strong Karl Geiger, the German team was almost 35 meters behind Austria with 1110.0 points after eight jumps. Their quartet led by tour champion Daniel Tschofenig won with 1170.4 points, well ahead of Slovenia (1129.6) and Norway (1122.9) and is also the big favorite at the World Cup (February 26th to March 9th).
While Paschke is far from the brilliant form of the first weeks of the season with moderate jumps of 126.5 and 132.0 m, the five-time world champion Geiger (136.5 + 139.5) took a big step forward. “It’s finally fun again,” said Geiger, but he sympathized with his frustrated colleague: “It’s not an easy situation for Pius. But he has to solve it himself, and I’m convinced that he will solve it.
Like Geiger, Philipp Raimund (134.5+131.5) was also convincing, while Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger (127.5+139.0) showed light and shadow. “We’re lacking ease at the moment, it’s a difficult phase that we’re not happy with,” said Wellinger.
National coach Stefan Horngacher, on the other hand, was surprisingly satisfied – even if his men continued their mixed Four Hills Tournament despite an extensive practice phase at home. “In view of our training performance here in Zakopane, it could have been much worse,” said the Austrian. As it is, he “takes a positive feeling with him”.
The German team will have to measure themselves against this assessment on Sunday. Then (4 p.m./ARD and Eurosport) there is an individual competition in Zakopane, for which six DSV Adler have qualified.