Somewhere between the take-off table and the end of the system, his body had let him down for a moment. The tried and tested folding movement, performed as if in sleep, turned out a little too late, too cautious, its altitude was therefore a little lower, and at the end of the evening what actually happened at the end of the evening was what was hardly imaginable in the end: Ryoyu Kobayashi did not leave the run as the winner.
But that only applied to this final stop in Bischofshofen. What it was all about stayed with him: The Japanese, who had won the last four competitions including the World Cup in Engelberg, Switzerland – and only made minor mistakes, won the 70th Four Hills Tournament because of himself lush lead of 24.2 points, which was never in danger that evening. What he didn’t succeed in was the step into a new dimension of ski jumping. With a final victory, he would have been the first ski jumper with two touring Grand Slams, i.e. with all four victories in a row.
Pursuit Marius Lindvik had missed all chances early on
As it is, he has the first, achieved in January 2019, and currently another, sovereign, “conventional” tour victory, which was decided astonishingly early that evening. Second place in the overall standings went to the Norwegian Marius Lindvik, who gave up his small remaining chance of overall victory in the first round with only 126 meters. His compatriot Halvor Egner Granerud, on the other hand, managed such a big set in the second round in time that even the best jumpers of the German Ski Association, Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler, couldn’t get past their fourth and fifth places overall.
Was it stopped by rays from space? Serial winner Ryoyu Kobayashi only finished fifth in the last competition of the Four Hills Tournament.
(Photo: Daniel Karmann / dpa)
After qualifying everything seemed to go as it always did – the majority of the players jumped and tried their best, then Kobayashi came and sat down in front of it. This time it was wonderful, cold winter weather – dry, fresh powder snow lay in the landing area and in the run-out, the view was clear. And the inrun turned out to be fast – so fast that there was a jump from the low hatch eight in between, but that had not been a problem for the Japanese with the outstanding technology so far. Was it then perhaps the respect for this historic sporting moment that suddenly made him rely on safety?
Kobayashi seemed unmoved afterwards and commented on the day accordingly as he did with his victories: factual, emotionless, without any extreme word that could somehow be understood as disrespectful to his competitors. “I really attacked,” he later said on ORF. And he was a little sad that it didn’t work out, he was “a little tired” – on the other hand, he made it clear, “I’m also happy because I won the Four Hills Tournament”.
Five years without a victory on the tour – Daniel Huber ends Austria’s waiting
In its finale, it put a few supporting actors in the spotlight, some as surprising losers, others as sudden winners. The most prominent was Daniel Huber, who wrote several stories with his victory. It was his first individual World Cup victory, the 29-year-old had been in the shadow of others for a long time, now he was doing the job that Austria’s ski jumpers had been waiting for for a good five years. Because since December 30, 2016, the ÖSV team had not won a Four Hills Tournament. Now Daniel Huber finally managed a punctual jump and a huge leap that carried him over the green line and beyond.
Only one was left up after that, the Oberstdorf Karl Geiger, who was shaken by the back and forth between setbacks and partial successes during this entire tour, who was initially considered one of the first favorites. Now he wanted at least one more podium result, if not in the overall ranking, then at least in the daily standings. His ski jumping companion and roommate Markus Eisenbichler had worked his way out of a long low these days, but his sometimes capital long flights were also followed by average jumps.
That left Geiger, who was the last jumper of this 70th Four Hills Tournament to climb the podium after all. He had made it exciting – disappointed in the qualification, which he just survived, then made a fabulous jump to 140.5 meters in the first round and again secured his podium with 0.8 points ahead of 281.9 points in the final round away. Sometimes lows, sometimes highs – it was once again a result that somehow aptly underlined the performance of all German jumpers on this tour.