Daniel Huber is the first overall leader of this year’s Raw Air Tour. The Austrian prevailed against two Norwegians in the qualification at Holmenkollen in Oslo. Philipp Raimund surprises as the best German, another is threatened with elimination.
With the best distance of 134.5 meters, Daniel Huber secured victory in the qualification at the start of this year’s Raw Air Tour. The Austrian scored a total of 141.8 points on Friday afternoon at the famous Holmenkollen in Oslo, beating the Norwegian Johann Andre Forfang, who reached 133 meters (137.9 p.). Forfang’s compatriot Marius Lindvik also reached 133 meters (136.1 p.) in slightly better conditions and thus took third place.
“This is my first qualifying win and very impressive for me. Of course I’m happy about it,” said the 31-year-old Austrian, who is now the overall leader of the Raw Air Tour for the first time, because the qualifying jumps also count towards the overall ranking, which includes a total of 16 ranking runs up to the finale in Vikersund next Sunday .
Raimund best German – Leyhe is eliminated
The best German at the first test of strength on the tour through Norway was not Andreas Wellinger, but Philipp Raimund, who took fifth place with 129.5 meters, tied on points with the Austrian Manuel Fettner (5th). After decent training performances, Andreas Wellinger had to be satisfied with 128 meters and 15th place.
Stephan Leyhe didn’t get past 111 meters and missed the first of two competitions this weekend. The Willinger is even threatened with a bitter end at the “Raw Air” – because the revised rules of the tour stipulate that only the top 50 of the overall World Cup are allowed to travel on to the second stop in Trondheim.
The other German ski jumpers also left a lot of room for improvement at the start of the Raw Air Tour: Pius Paschke was only 26th, Karl Geiger only 36th – but both of them, like Constantin Schmid (48th), are in the first round on Saturday eligible to start.
Strength also weakens
With increasingly difficult conditions on Holmenkollen, other top ski jumpers also found it difficult to achieve distance: Stefan Kraft, who has already won the tour twice and, as the overall World Cup leader, also started this winter as the top favorite, ended up in 16th place with 125 meters, behind Wellinger – level on points with defending champion Halvor Egner Granerud from Norway (16th).
Overall World Cup runner-up Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan finished tenth, only the second-best Japanese on the day behind compatriot Ren Nikaido (9th). To the delight of numerous fans, veteran Noriaki Kasai (47th) from the Far East also qualified for the competition on Saturday.
Norwegians strong – Nousiainen surprised
The Norwegian ski jumpers can hope for a strong performance in front of their home crowd this weekend, because alongside Forfang and Lindvik, a third Norwegian, Robert Johansson (7th), landed in the top ten. The Slovenian Peter Prevc (4th) and especially the Finn Eetu Nousianen (8th) also performed surprisingly well.
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On Saturday, the test run starts at 1:40 p.m., before everything starts at 2:40 p.m live at skijumping.com) becomes serious again not only in the fight for the overall victory of “Raw Air”, but also for the overall World Cup.
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