With a strong qualification, ski jumper Markus Eisenbichler raised hopes for the Olympic decision on the large hill on Saturday.
The former world champion landed in sixth place with a jump of 129.0 m and was thus the best of the recently so disappointing DSV-Adler. On his 29th birthday, hopeful Karl Geiger came in twelfth with a jump of 128.0 m.
The winner of the qualification was the Norwegian Marius Lindvik with 135.0 m ahead of his teammate Halvor Egner Granerud and the veteran Peter Prevc from Slovenia. Normal hill Olympic champion Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan had to settle for ninth place.
Constantin Schmid followed in 19th place. Pius Paschke, who was still missing in the individual from the normal hill, also easily made it into the top 50 in 30th place and is therefore there on Saturday (7:00 p.m. OT/12:00 p.m. CET/ZDF and Eurosport).
Stephan Leyhe was only a spectator. National coach Stefan Horngacher was only allowed to nominate four jumpers, Willinger had shown the weakest performances of the German quintet in training. Before the team competition on Monday, Leyhe should get another chance to prove himself in training.