Dawid Kubacki wins the third competition of the Four Hills Tournament, but can only catch up a few points on the overall leader Granerud, who puts on an impressive race to catch up in the final. The German ski jumpers are again only supporting actors.
With jumps of 127 and 121.5 meters, Dawid Kubacki secured victory in the third competition of the 71st Four Hills Tournament. The Pole scored a total of 265.2 points on the famous Bergisel in Innsbruck on Wednesday and, in front of 18,700 spectators, defeated the overall leader Halvor Egner Granerud from Norway, who came on 123 and 133 meters (261.7 points). The Slovenian Anze Lanisek took third place with 127 and 121.5 meters (258.8 points).
Kubacki laid the foundation for his first day’s victory in this year’s tour in the first round: At half time the 32-year-old was in the lead ahead of Lanisek and Stoch and at times took a total of 12.8 points from overall leader Halvor Egner Granerud.
Granerud attacks in the final
The Norwegian, who missed the fourth Grand Slam after Sven Hannawald (2001/2002), Kamil Stoch (2017/2018) and Ryoyu Kobayashi (2018/2019), was only sixth after the first round. With a tremendous jump in the final, the Norwegian then started a strong race to catch up.
» Four Hills Tournament 2022/2023: The overall ranking at a glance
In the end, the Norwegian lost just 3.5 points to Kubacki and leads the overall standings with a lead of 23.3 points over Kubacki. Third-placed Lanisek is only an outsider in the upcoming final in Bischofshofen.
Raimund best DSV ski jumper
For the German ski jumpers, however, there wasn’t much to get at Bergisel: Nach the disappointing qualifying end of Karl Geiger the day before, the team headed by national coach Stefan Horngacher failed to turn the tide as they had hoped for in the third competition of the Four Hills Tournament.
» Event overview: Schedule & information on the Four Hills Tournament final in Bischofshofen
In the end, only youngster Philipp Raimund could be satisfied, who was the best German ski jumper with 116.5 and 118 meters and 13th place. Andreas Wellinger (18th), Markus Eisenbichler (22nd), Constantin Schmid (26th) and Pius Paschke (28th) collected more World Cup points, but again they were only supporting actors in the fight for the top places.
Horngacher: “Definitely not at a loss”
“We came here to get better over the course of the tour. Now we’re quite far behind, it’s a difficult situation for us,” analyzed national coach Stefan Horngacher and continued: “I’m definitely not at a loss. We know which wheels to turn.”
Only Stephan Leyhe did not manage to qualify for the final via the lucky loser rule after losing in a knockout duel with Slovenian Domen Prevc and was eliminated early with 33rd place.
Kraft scrapes past the podium
The Austrian ski jumpers narrowly missed the hoped-for podium finish in front of their home crowd, as they did in Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Stefan Kraft was particularly strong, taking fourth place behind Lanisek with 129.5 and 125 meters.
In addition, the hosts Michael Hayböck (7th), Daniel Tschofenig (8th) and Jan Hörl (9th) made it into the top ten. Clemens Leitner was disqualified in the first round because of an irregular jump suit.
“We were very strong as a team. In the first round, the telemark threw a spanner in the works, they were all a bit shaky,” said head coach Andreas Widholzl.
» World Cup calendar 2022/2023 (men): All dates at a glance
The Four Hills Tournament will be continued tomorrow in Bischofshofen: Before the grand finale on Epiphany, two training sessions are on the program on Thursday from 2:30 p.m., before at 4:30 p.m. (everything live at skijumping.com) the qualification starts.
More about that right here at skisprung.com.