Four Hills Tournament - Dream start for ski jumpers: Wellinger wins first qualifying round
The German ski jumpers around qualifying winner Andreas Wellinger have made an ideal start to the Four Hills Tournament.
Wellinger jumped 135 meters in front of an impressive crowd in Oberstdorf, finishing just ahead of his team-mate Karl Geiger, who came second with 134 meters. Philipp Raimund in fourth, Pius Paschke in ninth and Stephan Leyhe in twelfth completed an excellent team result for the team of national coach Stefan Horngacher.
"That was a great warm-up, the results are exceptionally good. That's very good for us," said Horngacher. In front of 16,300 spectators - a record for ski jumping qualifications according to the organizers - the top favorites also had to admit defeat in Austria's Stefan Kraft (seventh place) and Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi (eighth).
Horngacher actually saw the day as a better exercise. "We haven't jumped for seven days now," noted the Austrian. Then things immediately went smoothly again. Youngster Raimund was particularly enthusiastic about the atmosphere. "Totally awesome. I'm looking forward to tomorrow even more, but even today is already a mega backdrop," said the 23-year-old.
25th tour for Simon Ammann
One of the attractions of the event remains Switzerland's Simon Ammann, who was competing in his 25th tour. "The numbers don't mean anything to me. It's just great. I'm not really prepared for the volume. I'm really looking forward to Oberstdorf," said the 42-year-old on ARD.
With his jump of 119 meters, he had no problems qualifying for the competition this Friday (17:15/ARD and Eurosport). Over 25,000 fans are expected on the Schattenberg.
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Source: www.stern.de
