The German ski jumpers were not able to convince at the premiere of the newly created “Two Nights Tour”. At the opening competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday (December 30th, 2023) Luisa Görlich was the best DSV eagle. Katharina Schmid and Selina Freitag missed the top 10. Nika Prevc won.
In the first women’s jumper on the large Olympic hill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the local heroes were unable to use their home advantage. Luisa Görlich was the only athlete from the German Ski Association (DSV) to make it into the top ten. Katharina Schmid fought her way up to twelfth place after a weak first jump. Selina Freitag turned 21.
Nika Prevc (133 meters/130 m) from Slovenia secured the premiere victory at the first stop of the “half Four Hills Tournament”. In her second World Cup success in a row, she was almost 13 points ahead of Norway’s Eirin Maria Kvandal (126.5 m/132.5 m). Third place went to Abigail Strate from Canada (131 m/130.5 m).
National coach: Transfer performance from training into competition
National coach Thomas Juffinger can’t really explain why the competitions aren’t going quite as well as they did last season. “If you don’t have a good start to the season, you often try to use force. Now let’s try to bring what we show in training into the competition“, he explained, referring to the performance of his top jumper Schmid at the “Sportschau” microphone.
Top positions are out of reach after just one jump
At halftime, the German women were already a long way behind the leaders. Görlich was best placed in tenth place. Despite a decent 126.5 meters, they already had 21 points less than first place Prevc.
The German model jumpers Schmid (119 m) and Freitag (120.5 m) followed in 16th and 17th place. Juliane Seyfarth (119 m/24th), Anna Rupprecht (117.5 m/26th) and World Cup debutant Alvine Holz (116.5 m/29th) also made it into the second round. Of the DSV women, only Pia Lilian Kübler missed the final of the top 30 after 112.5 meters.
Holz gets his first World Cup points
With 112 meters, Holz wasn’t able to quite match the performance of the first round, but she was happy about her first World Cup points. She gained another position and came 28th.”I didn’t expect to make it to the second round“, explained the 19-year-old, who only started ski jumping five years ago.
Rupprecht went down one place, finishing in 27th position one day after her 27th birthday and 114 meters in the second round. Seyfarth (120 m) also had to let another opponent pass her.
Schmid scratches into the top 10
Once again, Freitag didn’t get a decent jump in the final and landed at 118 meters. So she lost another four places and came 21st. Schmid, on the other hand, was able to improve considerably. Their 127 meters pushed them up from 16th place to twelve. “I was annoyed that I couldn’t show everything in the first jump. The second one was significantly better, even if not quite as I showed in the training sessions here. But it’s getting slow“, said Schmid.
Görlich maintained her position at 124 meters. This is her third top-10 finish in an individual competition in her career. She was correspondingly happy after the competition: “It was really, really fun. There were so many spectators there, it couldn’t be better“, explained the 25-year-old after jumping. Since she felt a certain tension when all eyes were on her, she simply tried to do everything as calmly as possible: “I think it worked.“
Final on New Year’s Day in Oberstdorf
The “Two Nights Tour” ends on the first day of the new year in Oberstdorf. Schmid is particularly happy “gigantic“on jumping in her hometown:”This is something very special again in front of your home audience, in front of family and friends.“