Andreas Wellinger travels to the Ski Jumping World Championships with a feeling. The German wins the dress rehearsal in Romania, five other Germans make it into the top six. However, the meaningfulness seems low – because top nations say goodbye to the competition.
In the exuberance of his next World Cup success, Andreas Wellinger even slowed down the German ski jumping legend Sven Hannawald. “Sven, don’t talk so much,” said the Olympic champion when he came to the ARD microphone in Rasnov, Romania, beaming with joy and was allowed to explain another coup. In the end, the 27-year-old Bavarian was only 0.2 points ahead of Ziga Jelar from Slovenia, making the next victory after Lake Placid’s success a reality. Hannawald took the cheeky Wellinger very calmly: “That’s today’s youth.”
This was preceded by a bizarre competition that had more to do with a German national cup than with the World Cup. Because the strong Poles, Austrians and Norwegians all stayed away with a view to the upcoming World Cup and prefer to train, five athletes from national coach Stefan Horngacher made it into the top six. Wellinger and Jela were followed by Karl Geiger in third place and Markus Eisenbichler, Philipp Raimund and Constantin Schmid in fourth to sixth place. “I would say that we did everything right,” said Wellinger.
Even the first triple success after 1990 seemed possible, but then Jelar intervened with a strong second round. Wellinger is suddenly a candidate for the medals at the World Championships – after years of lows with many injuries and unexpected setbacks. “He hardly makes any mistakes. The World Championships start on the small hill. He’s already in it and I think that with the two wins he can loosen up,” analyzed Hannawald.
Wellinger can hardly get out of the beam at the moment. The victory in Lake Placid was relatively unexpected. This time he was even somewhat of a favorite in the absence of Norway’s Halvor Egner Granerud, Poland’s Dawid Kubacki and Austria’s Stefan Kraft. “It feels pretty awesome. It’s really unusual. The self-confidence is what’s saving me at the moment. It feels incredibly good to jump back to the top,” said Wellinger, who has three individual podiums in a row at the World Championships will travel to Planica in Slovenia.
Only in that picturesque valley will it become clear whether the German plan with competition instead of training shortly before the big event worked. Eisenbichler, who missed the win after a half-time lead, regretted the many cancellations, especially for the Romanian hosts. It was “a shame for the organizers”. For the German jumpers it is “good, we can score a bunch of World Cup points”. On Sunday there is still a so-called super team competition. Wellinger and Geiger start for Germany, the duo is clearly favoured.
