Halvor Egner Granerud dominates the first competition of the Four Hills Tournament. A tight fight for the podium developed behind the Norwegian – in which Karl Geiger narrowly missed out. Nevertheless, the DSV star is satisfied because the form curve is pointing upwards. Very different from Markus Eisenbichler.
At the start of the Four Hills Tournament, Karl Geiger narrowly missed the podium, but finished fourth but showed strong improvement. When Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud clearly won, the local hero from Oberstdorf was less than a meter off the podium. Andreas Wellinger rounded off the good German result in sixth place. “It was a great start to the tour, I’m very satisfied,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher on ZDF, whose team had started the World Cup winter rather moderately: “We’ve come closer again. It’s important for us that we’re up front are involved.”
The two Poles, Piotr Zyla and Dawid Kubacki, finished second and third, well behind Granerud. Granerud was only one meter below the 19-year-old hill record of his compatriot Sigurd Pettersen in the first round with 142.5 meters. “That’s crazy. Granerud is just jumping on a different level,” said Geiger, who was fifth behind Wellinger after the first round. “Then I managed a really good jump, my best here. I’m satisfied.”
The young Philipp Raimund from Oberstdorf achieved the best World Cup result of his career in 14th place. “I feel super good, I’ve arrived. I think I’ll bring a breath of fresh air to us,” said the 22-year-old. The former tour third Stephan Leyhe, on the other hand, had to settle for 20th place, Constantin Schmid followed in 29th place.
Markus Eisenbichler had to accept another setback. The six-time world champion lost his knockout duel against Turkey’s Fatih Arda Ipicoglu and missed the second round in 33rd place. Pius Paschke also fell short of expectations as 41st. Eisenbichler is now even considering an early exit from the tour. “The constitution isn’t right at the back or front. I’ll have to talk to the coaches about whether it still makes sense to continue torturing me. It’s just not nice,” said the 31-year-old.