In the fight for tournament victory, ski jumper Andreas Wellinger relies entirely on the Paul-Außerleitner ski jump, which he loves.
“I really like Bischofshofen. I don’t do so many jumps on any other hill. I can get there in an hour from home; even as a student I often drove there from Berchtesgaden to train,” said the Bavarian.
The battle for overall victory will be decided in Bischofshofen on Saturday, with qualification taking place on Friday.
“I’m going to put my foot down and hammer the thing out with confidence, stay in the air for as long as possible and land cleanly – and then there will be a list of results,” said Wellinger. In the overall ranking, the Olympic champion is two and a half meters behind the leading Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi.
Wellinger won the qualification in Bischofshofen in 2017 with the hill record of 144.5 m. Two years later, the Pole Dawid Kubacki improved the record to 145.0 m.
National coach Stefan Horngacher also sees a kind of home advantage for Wellinger. “Bischofshofen is a bit of his home hill, where he trains a lot in the summer and jumps quite well. He has all the possibilities,” said the Austrian.
However, Wellinger was only on the podium once on the Paul-Außerleitner-Schanze; in 2018 he finished third. His rival Kobayashi, however, won there in 2019 and 2022 and left Wellinger behind in each of the last five meetings.
The duels between Wellinger and Kobayashi in Bischofshofen:
January 6, 2023: 17. Kobayashi, 20. Wellinger
January 8, 2022: 4. Kobayashi, 19. Wellinger (no competition jumping)
January 6, 2022: 5. Kobayashi, 33. Wellinger
January 5, 2022: 1. Kobayashi, 15. Wellinger (replacement for Innsbruck)
January 6, 2019: 1. Kobayashi, 15. Wellinger
January 6, 2018: 3. Wellinger, 20. Kobayashi (+49.0 points)
January 6, 2017: 31. Wellinger, 42. Kobayashi (+17.7 points)