At first nothing special seemed to happen. As always, Halvor Egner Granerud leaned forward immediately after the jump, the skis and his body formed into a kind of long H instead of a braking V, lying flat on the air cushion. It didn’t matter that the rear left end of this position sagged slightly and on the other side his right arm jerked outwards of its own accord, causing Granerud to drift slightly to the right – it didn’t matter. Because Granerud also landed his mighty jump elegantly in the snow, whereupon the Norwegian was again far, far ahead in the tour rankings, uncatchable on this day as well.
Then, before leaving the outrun, Granerud sat down again in the snow, crossed his jumping legs cross-legged, raised his arms, put thumbs to forefingers and indicated an ultra-short meditation. Maybe this was just cocky nonsense, maybe he wanted to say something to the audience. In any case, the otherwise brooding, rather taciturn 26-year-old was obviously incredibly happy about this day.
For the time being, he has distanced himself from the direct competition of this tour, which was initially exceptionally full of favourites, probably even decisively. The next jumper is already 26.8 points behind: Dawid Kubacki, the top Polish player in the previous winter, was once again not able to use his jump to the full and had a little trouble with his performance as soon as he landed. Anze Lanisek, on the other hand, the Slovenian, had made a jump up the leaderboard comparable to his real one in the snow.
He caught up six places in one fell swoop. But despite the long set he is now 51.4 points behind the leader, Piotr Zyla, the third placed, is also already behind in the overall list with 40.1 points, followed by the following Germans Karl Geiger (minus 57.6) and Andreas Not to speak to Wellinger (minus 57.8). No, Granerud’s short meditation was clearly intended to mean relaxation, inner balance and strength as has been speculated elsewhere.
The German jumpers of national coach Stefan Horngacher actually needed some relaxation after this day. Karl Geiger was disappointed because his flying form, which was excellent in Oberstdorf, suddenly faltered again. “If you miss a jump, you can be out,” he said. In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, neither the qualification nor the knockout round nor the decisive jump were suitable for somehow keeping an eye on the top. And Andreas Wellinger didn’t improve in the end either, although his first jump initially gave us a lot of hope.
On tour, anyone can make a mistake. But Granerud seems solid
Horngacher said that people were even more euphoric after Oberstdorf, “then we thought we had caught up”. Instead, the fresh wind turned in another direction and the DSV jumpers have to reorient themselves again. Stefan Kraft also had to struggle with the disappointment, the Austrian, who was one of the overall winner candidates long before the tour, but now has no chance again with a deficit of almost 75 points.
Kraft was probably still weakened after his cold from Engelberg, even in Garmisch-Partenkirchen he couldn’t counter the tailwind, again he dropped too early, and then, he said later, “you don’t get that many wind points because the wind also came from the side”. Nevertheless, he was looking forward to the next two stations in Innsbruck and Bischofshofen.
The craziest things can happen on tour, and Halvor Egner Granerud also regularly makes a sudden mistake, arising from some thought that suddenly misleads him and throws him back. Everything is possible, not only in Innsbruck, but also in Bischofshofen. In fact, however, Granerud has also worked on himself, he probably recognized his cerebral nature as not productive, optimized many details of his jump – and, unlike all his other competitors, he got in shape on time. With the first jump of this tour, in the qualifier in Oberstdorf, he suddenly convinced. And with this victory in Garmisch, where he had already squandered all his tour opportunities with an eighth place, he may now have left another bad experience behind.
Some observers in Garmisch-Partenkirchen were of the opinion that Granerud had simply imitated his compatriot and soccer striker Erling Haaland, who also likes to cheer with crossed legs, but that is unlikely, far too short-sighted. Halvor Egner Granerud certainly wanted to announce something, namely that with this performance at the second stop of the 22/23 tour he can leave his self-doubt and brooding behind and now fully relax.