Status: 02/18/2023 7:10 p.m
The German ski jumpers dominated the last individual World Cup before the World Championships in Planica. When Andreas Wellinger won on Saturday (February 18, 2023), almost the entire world elite was missing. Of the six German starters, only Stephan Leyhe did not make it into the top six.
Five DSV jumpers among the top six, only the Slovenian Ziga Jelar broke through the German phalanx: The team of national coach Stefan Horngacher was represented at the World Cup in Rasnov with two jumpers on the podium. In addition to Wellinger, who has his fifth World Cup victory overall with a wafer-thin lead of 0.2 points and the second within a week could celebrate, Jelar finished second and Karl Geiger made it onto the podium. Markus Eisenbichler, the leader, slipped back to fourth after the first jump. Philipp Raimund and Constantin Schmid landed directly behind them.
National coach Horngacher praises “super jumps”
“It wasn’t that easy today,” said Horngacher, despite dominating the Sportschau microphone afterwards: “It was pretty windy and there were pretty big differences today. But we saw a few super jumps. I think we can be satisfied be.”
Wellinger was happy about his next coup: “It feels pretty awesome. The jumps were actually not that good, but the confidence is currently saving me over the stem and then I can slide down. It feels incredibly good, whole again to stand on top.” Wellinger felt that the decision to hold the competitions in Rasnov was the right decision in preparation for the Nordic World Ski Championships.
Wind and inrun cause problems
Somehow the competitions in Romania were not under a good star. As with the Women’s World Cup in the morning The wind also determined what was happening on the trambulina Valea Cărbunării for the men. Especially in the first round there were always long breaks. In addition, the rehearsal in the afternoon had to be canceled due to “technical problems”, according to an official statement from the world association. Specifically, there were problems with the cooling in the inrun track of the hill.
While the top jumpers of almost all nations have decided not to travel to Romania and are already preparing for the upcoming World Championships in Planica (February 21 to March 5) prepare, only the best German team had arrived. In addition to the German sextet, only Philipp Aschenwald from Austria, Ziga Jelar from Slovenia and Daniel Andre Tande from Norway were among the top 30 in the overall World Cup rankings. Accordingly, in the starting field of 47 participants, almost half of the jumpers had not yet collected a World Cup point this season.
Geiger slides forward, Eisenbichler backwards
So the DSV team jumped out of something like a small German championship in Rasnov. Karl Geiger was able to move up four positions in the second round with the longest jump of the day at 99 meters (just as much as Wellinger) and thus made it onto the podium. Eisenbichler went in the other direction, unable to counter Wellinger’s attack and even lost three places after 93 meters. After fifth place at half-time, Constantin Schmid also fell back one position with his second jump of 93 meters and was one place behind Philipp Raimund (95.0/94.0 meters). Stephan Leyhe was 13th (86.0/89.0 m).
Schuster-son jumps into the points
Jonas Schuster also benefited from the numerous cancellations at the World Cup. The son of the long-time German national coach Werner Schuster came in a good tenth place at his first World Cup start. The 19-year-old, who won team gold with Austria at the Junior World Championships in 2022 and 2023, collected his first World Cup points.
Source: sportschau.de