The old order was back, at least for the moment: the quartet that had been at the helm for weeks until the end of just last year was fully assembled again. Dawid Kubacki, the Pole who has been outstanding since the beginning of the season, the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud, then Anze Lanisek from Slovenia – and Stefan Kraft, the mood jumper and former tournament winner, who had recently slipped a little, but now in the third tournament jumping before his home crowd was back in great form. The battle for the overall standings, on the other hand, remained moderately exciting. Granerud is still 23.3 points ahead of Kubacki, almost 13 meters.
In the end, around 3:30 p.m., the best fought an exciting battle on the Bergisel ski jump in Innsbruck, but there was a bit of suspense until the end of the series in Bischofshofen. All four have won, so to speak. First of all Dawid Kubacki, because he was the last jumper who kept his nerve and jumped under difficult conditions. The tailwind, which was damaging for long distances, blew hard from behind at 4.6 meters per second, it was by far the strongest breeze of the afternoon. In addition, Kubacki’s coach had shortened the run-up, and yet he managed to delay the flight, like a passenger who only jumps off the running board at the last moment.
Granerud, on the other hand, had won and lost at the same time. He must have been relieved after he had compensated for his moderate jumps from the qualification and the first round (only 127 meters) – with a jump that, as he has seen several times, was spectacular. Granerud jumped by far the furthest with 133 meters, this result gave him second place in the end. However, what he missed, at least on this tour, is a special place in the history of the tour: namely the next tour Grand Slam, i.e. the quadruple victory.
Anze Lanisek, on the other hand, who placed third in Innsbruck, once again managed a respectable sentence, which documented that the Slovenian is still one of the trio of the best this winter, to which the best Austrian and local hero Stefan Kraft is not quite one at the moment, but he is planning to was able to increase his fans again and has a good chance of finishing in Bischofshofen (qualification, Thursday, 4 p.m.; jumping Friday, 4 p.m.). The German jumpers fared farther back, the best was Philipp Raimund, the 22-year-old talent who came in 13th place as the best of the German Ski Association at Bergisel.
And then another main actor took part in the jumping in Innsbruck, namely the Föhn, the warm fall wind, which didn’t rest and caused additional excitement. Among other things, because he turned the outrun of the hill into an obstacle with high temperatures. The meltwater that seeped into the trough from the jump and braking slope collected again there, which brought another thrill to the jumping. After all, the world’s best slipped and wobbled, twisted and flailed their arms, but ultimately all stayed on their skis.