Andreas Wellinger gave the German ski jumpers a podium finish at the start of the new PolSKI tour with a dream flight.
The runner-up of the Four Hills Tournament came third with Stephan Leyhe at the “Super Team” competition in Wisla, Poland, and continued to show strong form.
A week after the end of the tour, the Ruhpoldinger flew in the second of three rounds from the newly converted Adam Malysz ski jump to 144.5 m and exceeded the hill record of the Slovenian Anze Lanisek, which was only a few minutes old, by seven meters. Wellinger also jumped 127.0 m in his first attempt and 123.0 m in his third and clearly weakest attempt. Leyhe got 129.5 and twice 128.0.
Slovenia with Lanisek and Lovro Kos was clearly the best team overall and clearly prevailed with 753.5 points. The Austrians, who competed without World Cup leader Stefan Kraft and instead with Manuel Fettner and Jan Hörl, remained just ahead of Germany (709.0) with 711.0 points.
In the “Super Team” format, two jumpers per team compete, the best twelve teams advance to the second round, and eight teams compete in the final third round. This competition was held for the first time in the men’s World Cup last year; Wellinger and Karl Geiger won the second competition in Rasnov/Romania.
The format of the PolSKI tour is completely new. For the overall ranking, the points of the best two athletes in a nation are added together for each competition and qualification, so in the end one team wins.
The individual competition in Wisla is on Sunday; Wellinger took second place in the qualification on Friday. The Poland tour will continue with an individual competition in Szczyrk the following Wednesday and finally two competitions (team and individual) in Zakopane (January 20th/21st).