Without Philipp Raimund and Felix Hoffmann, the German ski jumpers are currently not competitive. This was also evident at the super team competition in Zakopane. Karl Geiger and Pius Paschke only came sixth in the Olympic dress rehearsal of the competition. The victory went overwhelmingly to Austria.
The German ski jumpers experienced another setback at the World Cup in Zakopane on Saturday (January 10, 2026). In the super team competition, the German duo with Karl Geiger and Pius Paschke only came sixth after three jumps each. The victory went to the Austrian duo with Jan Hörl and Stephan Embacher. Hörl jumped 141.0 meters in the first round, the best distance of the afternoon.
Exciting competition for second to fourth place
After three rounds, Hörl/Embacher relegated the competition to the remaining places by a large margin. Slovenia with Timi Zajc and Anze Lanisek were in second place, 47.6 points behind. Hosts Poland with Dawid Kubacki and Kacper Tomasiak came third, 64.1 points behind Austria. Norway with Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal and Halvor Egner Granerud had to settle for fourth place after second place after two out of three rounds (-71.2 points).
Top athletes are missing in Zakopane
In the absence of numerous top athletes such as World Cup leader Domen Prevc, the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi, the Austrians Daniel Tschofenig and Stefan Kraft as well as the two best German athletes Philipp Raimund and Felix Hoffmann, Geiger and Paschke were 117.2 points behind the winners and 53.1 points in third place.
Horngacher: “Not as imagined”
“The training started well. And then the mistakes increase towards the competition. It’s a battle from top to bottom. I don’t have the coolness in the competition. It feels better, but it doesn’t show up on the results list yet.”says Paschke, slightly frustrated, in the sports show.
National coach Stefan Horngacher analyzed: “It didn’t work out as well as we had imagined. It was actually quite good in training. We have to continue working calmly. The great tension of the Four Hills Tournament is now gone.” The Austrian said to his two athletes: “With Karl Geiger, the last jump gives hope, it was good again after a long time. Unfortunately, Pius was too tense in the competition. Maybe he wanted too much.”
Geiger/Paschke knocked off after the first round
The German duo had a difficult time from the start. With 120.5 meters from Geiger, national coach Horngacher’s team was now in tenth place, while Paschke improved their ranking with 127.5 meters to eighth place in the ranking of the 13 teams. Italy was the 14th team to be disqualified; Francesco Cecon’s suit did not make it through the inspection.
Trembling in the second round: only 5.5 points secure the final
On the second jump, Geiger was able to improve slightly with 123 meters, but Paschke only managed 122.0 meters. The Germans had to tremble to get into the third round. Ultimately, this was achieved with a narrow lead of just 5.5 points over the USA, who missed the final competition in ninth place.
Third round: Finland and Ukraine at a distance
There Geiger had his best flight with 130.0 meters. This put the Germans ahead of Finland. Pius Paschke was able to distance Ukraine by 2.6 points with a distance of 128.5 meters. The Germans ended up in sixth place. However, with a huge gap to the podium places.
German mini team in Poland
The German team traveled to the World Cup in the Polish biathlon stronghold of Zakopane in small numbers. In addition to Geiger and Paschke, Andreas Wellinger is also at the start. Wellinger showed better jumps than Geiger in training on Saturday, but had to come 34th in qualifying but fell to 19th. Geiger was defeated and was not nominated for the Super Team.
Philipp Raimund and Felix Hoffmann, currently the two best German starters, are missing due to illness. Hoffmann’s knee, which was irritated after the Four Hills Tournament, should be spared. Raimund cures an infection. Other German jumpers like Luca Roth and Constantin Schmid are at the Continental Cup in Japan.