Ski jumping world champion Katharina Schmid’s podium series was broken in front of her home audience.
At the start of the “Two Nights Tour” in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Oberstdorf native had to settle for fifth place on New Year’s Eve after the victory of Slovenia’s Nika Prevc.
This meant that Katharina Schmid was only the second-best German: Agnes Reisch surprisingly jumped to fourth place in what was by far the best competition of her career.
Prevc won her third win of the season with flights of 134.0 and 135.5 m (275.8 points) confidently ahead of Norway’s Eirin Maria Kvandal (268.8) and Eva Pinkelnig from Austria (259.3).
With 137.5 m, Pinkelnig took away Reisch’s hill record set the day before with 136.0 m.
Schmid maintains lead in the overall World Cup
The 25-year-old Reisch, who had never before been placed in the top 10 in the World Cup, remained with 249.1 points, just ahead of the three-time season winner Schmid (248.4), who had previously been on the podium in all competitions of the season and was still in the lead claimed ahead of Prevc in the overall World Cup.
Selina Freitag, who won the qualification on Monday, couldn’t quite build on that and ended up in eighth place. Juliane Seyfarth achieved her best result in almost two years in eleventh place.
What was new in the mini-tour over two days was the mode: The only 30 jumpers from the reduced field – 40 athletes normally start in the World Cup – jumped in knockout duels for a place in the decisive round, which the 15 winners and the five best losers achieved.
Disappointing audience response
Around 90 minutes after the end of the men’s qualification for the New Year’s competition, not all of the 10,000 spectators had stayed at the jump – even though the organizer had enticed people with a “happy hour” at the drinks stands. Officially there were 3,000 fans who held out despite the cold after sunset and with New Year’s Eve approaching.
It wasn’t quite the desired atmosphere for the jumpers, who continue to fight for a full Four Hills Tournament. After the second jumping in Oberstdorf on Wednesday (4:15 p.m./ARD and Eurosport), the short tour is over again.
After all, for the first time the women were allowed to jump together with the men on a tour day. “Nevertheless, it’s always a slimmed down version for us,” said Freitag.
