Pius Paschke and Karl Geiger religiously followed Timi Zajc’s big air show from the run-out of the huge Heini-Klopfer ski jump. The German ski jumpers had nothing to do with the fight for victory or a podium at the first World Cup flying in Oberstdorf. A good month before the start of the World Cup, the DSV Eagles continue to lag behind the competition – despite a few good approaches.
“We have to keep working towards it. There’s still a lot to do, but we’re sticking with it,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher on ZDF after former flying world champion Geiger failed to win the Slovenian Zajc’s victory in his home town as the best DSV eagle came in tenth place.
Paschke in particular has to keep working, the five-time winner of the season is still miles away from the form of the first weeks of winter and only came in 18th. “I don’t really know why it wasn’t enough to get more meters,” said the 34-year-old: “It was more crowbar than I hoped for.”
Paschke was the last DSV Adler to reach the podium in his victory in Titisee-Neustadt on December 15th. There were nine podium places for the German athletes in the first eight competitions of the season – since then not a single one in eight individual competitions.
Tschofenig extends his lead in the overall World Cup
Things were going smoothly for Oberstdorf specialist Zajc. For the large hill world champion it was the fifth World Cup victory – all achieved in flying, four of them in the Allgäu. Zajc also broke a series: Since March 2024, only Germans or Austrians had won the World Cup – the latter seven times in a row.
After flights of 222.0 and 233.0 m (453.7 points), Zajc was ahead of Johann Andre Forfang (448.6). The Norwegian was still leading after the first round, then showed the longest jump of the day in the final with 235.0 m, but was unable to land it cleanly. Domen Prevc (Slovenia/444.9) came third. With fourth place, Austria’s tour winner Daniel Tschofenig extended his lead in the overall World Cup.
Geiger, the last German flying world champion in 2020, came closest to the best a good month before the start of the World Championships in Trondheim (February 26th to March 9th) – although he was almost 30 meters behind in third place.
With a strong second jump to 224.5 m, the Oberstdorfer moved a lot forward and past Andreas Wellinger. The World Championships runner-up in flying was eighth after the first round as the best German and fell back to 14th place in the final.
Spicy: Ski flying world champion Stefan Kraft was disqualified after his second jump after a mediocre first round. His suit did not have the necessary air permeability. There was some discussion about the Austrians’ suits at the Four Hills Tournament. However, they were also checked extensively there.