It wasn’t meant to be: Andreas Wellinger missed out on overall victory at the 72nd Four Hills Tournament. At the final competition in Bischofshofen on Epiphany (January 6th, 2024) he was well behind Ryoyu Kobayashi, who can look forward to his third gold eagle.
Already in the first jump, Kobayashi underlined his ambitions to win with 137 meters. Wellinger was 14.2 points behind the Japanese with 132 meters as well as poorer posture scores and less wind compensation. With the gap in the overall standings, that was around 10.5 meters, which Wellinger would have had to make up in the second round. The 2018 Olympic champion couldn’t do that and, like in 2017/18, came second on the tour.
Kobayashi narrowly missed out on the day’s victory on the Paul-Außerleitner ski jump. He was 1.3 points behind local hero Stefan Kraft (136.5/140 meters), who won the Four Hills Tournament in his home country for the first time and was correspondingly emotional. Anze Lanisek from Slovenia (134.5/141 m) came third. Wellinger came fifth in the daily rankings.
Wellinger: “Ryoyu did it best”
Wellinger had mixed feelings afterwards: “I’m a bit torn. Basically, I’m proud of what I did on the tour. I got off to an incredibly cool start in Oberstdorf and was able to do all the jumps very well. I was able to reproduce this in Garmisch. And then, funnily enough, I couldn’t quite implement it on the jumps, where I’ve shown it better in the past.“
On the other hand, despite a significant improvement compared to the training, the competition did not go according to plan: “It’s not an excuse, but I was way too slow in the first run – I normally drive at top speed. Unfortunately, I jumped at a time when the snowfall was increasing. So the driving experience wasn’t that good. But Ryoyu skied incredibly well, so I probably wouldn’t have cracked it today either way. All in all, I have to admit without envy that Ryoyu did it best.“
DSV has to wait 22 years after Hannawald
Kobayashi triumphed for the third time after 2018/19 and 2021/22 in the prestigious competition series in Germany and Austria. The German Ski Association (DSV), on the other hand, has to wait for its first overall victory since Sven Hannawald 22 years ago.
Kobayashi simply couldn’t be beaten that day; even a strange mishap didn’t faze him. In the first round, the 27-year-old made his way to the ski jump tower without his jump skis; he had simply forgotten the crossbars in the jumpers’ camp. He himself commented on his victory soberly as usual: “I simply implemented what I set out to do. It was a good performance that I was able to show.“Shortly after the competition, he didn’t know how he would spend the evening after his triumph, but he thought there would be a bit of celebration.
Two DSV eagles in the top ten
In addition to Wellinger, Pius Paschke also made it into the top ten. He jumped 129 and 133.5 meters and came eighth. He thus overtook his teammate Karl Geiger, who jumped the same distances but had significantly better wind conditions. He fell from ten to 15th place. Philipp Raimund finished one place ahead. He showed a decent competition and was able to confirm his good form with 126.5 and 134 meters.
Stephan Leyhe was the only one of the five German starters to miss the final. He didn’t get to the right height in his jump and lost his knockout duel against Poland’s Dawid Kubacki (125 m) with 119 meters. In addition, the distance was not enough to position yourself among the five best losers. He drew a mixed conclusion from the tour: “It was a working tour where I tried to improve my system from jump to jump. I succeeded quite well in Garmisch and Innsbruck. Today I wanted to take things up a notch or two. That went wrong.”
Praise from the national coach for “Wellinger-Show” and the team
Despite missing out on overall victory, national coach Stefan Horngacher was “very, very satisfied” with Andreas Wellinger: “He can be really proud of what he achieved. He put on an amazing show right up to the end. Unfortunately, today’s jumps didn’t go quite as well as we would have liked.”
But second place was also duly recognized in the evening: “We’ll meet at the hotel and make a plan“, Horngacher announced. However, there isn’t much time to celebrate, after all, after a short break, we’re going back on the road again. Next on the program are the three stops of the “PolSKI Tour” in Poland from January 13th.