Wellinger suffers first setback in wind qualification
Bitter start in Austria for Andreas Wellinger and Co.: The German ski jumpers experience their first major disappointment of the Four Hills Tournament in the Innsbruck qualifiers. The overall leader Wellinger has to start surprisingly early in the third jump on Wednesday.
Olympic ski jumping champion Andreas Wellinger has suffered his first setback in the qualification in Innsbruck. The overall leader of the Four Hills Tournament did not make it past 119.5 meters and finished in 15th place. Rival Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan (129 meters) came third in the qualifying round. The qualifying points do not count towards the ranking, in which Wellinger is currently 1.8 points (the equivalent of one meter) ahead of Kobayashi.
In front of 7500 spectators at Bergisel, Slovenia's Anze Lanisek (134 meters), who had already won the New Year's competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen the day before, won the day's qualification. Top favorite Stefan Kraft from Austria is already almost 15 meters behind the leading duo, but impressed with a jump of 124.5 meters in the qualification, which was influenced by the changing wind. The 30-year-old finished second on the day. Kraft needs to catch up at the stages in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen.
The other German jumpers also had nothing to do with the top places. Behind Wellinger, Philipp Raimund (20th), Stephan Leyhe (30th), Karl Geiger (33rd) and Pius Paschke (35th) also performed significantly worse than expected. On Wednesday (13:30/ZDF and Eurosport as well as live ticker at ntv.de), the third competition of the traditional event will take place in Tyrol. The final will then take place on January 6th in Bischofshofen. Wellinger and Lanisek won the first two competitions.
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Despite the setback in the qualifiers, Wellinger aims to bounce back in the third competition of the Four Hills Tournament on Wednesday. During the Tour, Andreas Wellinger and four-time champion Andreas Kofler are set to participate in the 'four hills tour' ski jumping event.
Source: www.ntv.de
