Lillehammer (dpa) – After the first podium place in this year’s Raw Air series, Karl Geiger showed his satisfaction at the camera.
In the fight for the yellow jersey for the World Cup best of the winter, it wasn’t a particularly good day for the 29-year-old ski jumper, who ended up third on the day just behind his long-time rival Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan.
“Of course you look at it, but I can’t influence things much. I did a good competition. I lost in the overall World Cup, but I still can’t blame myself,” said Geiger in Lillehammer. A brief power outage caused minor delays at the 1994 Olympic site, but things continued quickly after the problem was fixed.
Geiger: “It was consistently positive”
Geiger’s jumps of 135 and 134.5 meters brought him third place, but they weren’t enough against Austria’s winner of the day, Stefan Kraft, and Japan’s Kobayashi, who is now 63 points ahead of the man from the Allgäu and is on course to triumph in the overall World Cup. Nevertheless, Geiger was in a good mood. “It was consistently positive. It was a significant improvement. Both jumps were good. There’s still a bit of air, but I’m very happy with the day,” said the team world champion on ZDF. National coach Stefan Horngacher called the jumps of his top athlete “not perfect, but good”.
Behind Geiger, Markus Eisenbichler (6th), Constantin Schmid (12th), Severin Freund (18th) and Stephan Leyhe (26th) also made it into the second round. There is no longer a break for the pilots in the final spurt of winter, not even after the exhausting Beijing Winter Games. Packing started right after the Lillehammer competition, because three more competitions at Holmenkollen in Oslo are scheduled for Friday. Katharina Althaus made it to tenth place for women after surviving the corona infection. Marita Kramer from Austria won the day and extended her overall lead in the World Cup.
Wellinger: “brought nothing together”
In Oslo, Andreas Wellinger in particular has to improve significantly. The 2018 Olympic champion was eliminated in the first round of his comeback in the World Cup. The 26-year-old Wellinger did not get past 118.5 meters and ended up in 41st place. “It’s just kind of upper body, pulling arms and then putting them on the ski,” Wellinger commented. “I know that I can ski jump much better. I didn’t bring anything together yesterday and today.”
Wellinger had tested positive for the corona virus shortly before the Winter Games in Beijing and was not subsequently nominated for the competitions in China. Wellinger is now replacing the weak Pius Paschke in Norway. In Oslo he wants to prove that this exchange was right.