In the fight for the overall ski jumping World Cup, Karl Geiger suffered what was probably the decisive defeat. The man from Oberstdorf only came in twelfth place in the historic quadruple victory by host Slovenia when flying in Planica.
Geiger’s competitor Ryoyu Kobayashi increased the lead over the Germans from 66 to 89 points with only one remaining individual competition.
The hosts cleared up at the front: Ziga Jelar won the first World Cup of his career in front of Peter Prevc, Anze Lanisek and Timi Zajc, the quartet transformed the arena in the valley of the hills into a madhouse. The last time there was a quadruple victory was in 1980 by the Austrians Armin Kogler, Hubert Neuper, Toni Innauer and Klaus Tuchscherer in Thunder Bay, Canada.
After a jump of 213.0 m, Geiger was only in 19th place on the Letalnica, where he became world champion in 2020, before he continued to limit the damage with 232.5 m. So he has to win the season finale on Sunday and Kobayashi must not finish in the top 20 at the same time to still get the crystal globe. On Saturday (10:00 a.m./ARD and Eurosport) there will first be a team competition.
Overall, the German team was almost completely disappointing: apart from Geiger, only Andreas Wellinger reached the second round and ended up in 19th place. On his second jump, Wellinger was only three and a half meters below his personal best at 241.5 m.
Constantin Schmid (31st), Severin Freund (32nd) and Markus Eisenbichler (34th), on the other hand, were eliminated early. Stephan Leyhe had even failed in qualifying.