Four Hills Tournament - Dream start: Wellinger wins qualifying ahead of Geiger
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 on Thursday, 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.
Switzerland's Simon Ammann, who was competing in his 25th tour, remains an attraction at the event. "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). More than 25,000 fans are expected on the Schattenberg.
Information on the Four Hills Tournament Results Four Hills Tournament The overall World Cup standings News on ski jumping from the German Ski Association Qualifying results on Thursday
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Source: www.stern.de
