And then came Innsbruck (daily newspaper Junge Welt)

Ski jumping is one of the sports with a gladiatorial character. Hardly anyone operates it, but many are watching. In opinion polls on the most popular winter sports in Germany, ski jumping has been at the top for years, even though there are only a few hundred active people. Insane people who drive over the hill at 100 kilometers per hour and then sail 100 meters through the air.

There are spectacular falls for the thrill of the audience. Since the switch to the V style in the early 1990s, ski jumping has become safer. The wider ski guide provides more stability, and the air level has also decreased. However, serious injuries continue to accompany the sport. The former Austrian ski jumper Lukas Müller has been paraplegic since a fall in January 2016 on the ski jumping hill on Kulm in Styria. It was not until three years later that the administrative court confirmed that it had been an “accident at work” and that Müller had received “compensation” from the Austrian ski association. The association officials had classified the fall as a »recreational accident«. The judgment celebrated by the Austrian trade union federation is considered a precedent for better protection for the “high-risk athletes”.

The most popular ski jumping competition for decades is the Four Hills Tournament. At most, a gold medal at the Olympic Games can be compared to a victory there. The tour has been held since 1953, always around the turn of the year. The venues then were the same as they are today: Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen in Austria. Where there is normally an international match atmosphere, this year there is a yawning void. Ski jumping in the corona winter.

At the opening competition in Oberstdorf, the virus caused a lot of stir. Due to a positive test by the Polish jumper Klemens Muranka, the entire Polish team had to be quarantined, including last year’s winner of the tour, Dawid Kubacki. The Poles missed all training jumps. Only a negative series of tests on the day of the competition made it possible for them to start at short notice. A training jump was made up in a hurry. Kamil Stoch took a sensational second place under these circumstances. He was only beaten by the Oberstdorf local hero and newly crowned ski flying world champion Karl Geiger. Markus Eisenbichler, world champion on the large hill 2019, came in good fifth.

At the jumping competitions in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on January 1st and in Innsbruck on January 3rd, the Polish team made a big impression. Kubacki won in Garmisch, Piotr Zyla was third, Stoch fourth. Karl Geiger came in fifth, Markus Eisenbichler in seventh. In the overall standings, the second in the daily standings, the superior World Cup leader Halvor Egner Granerud from Norway, moved up. Geiger, Stoch, Kubacki and Eisenbichler lay behind him.

And then came Innsbruck. Again and again Innsbruck, where the German jumpers have been burying their chances of an overall victory at the tour for almost 20 years. The last German overall winner was the legendary Sven Hannawald in 2002. This year Karl Geiger crashed in the first round. A good second jump still secured him 16th place. Markus Eisenbichler was solid sixth, but had nothing decisive to oppose the again outstanding jumps from Poland. This time Stoch won, Kubacki was third, Zyla fourth. In between, the Slovenian Anze Lanisek came in second. Before the final jumping in Bischofshofen on 6.1. Stoch is clearly ahead of Kubacki and Granerud in the overall standings. Geiger and Eisenbichler are in fourth and fifth place. Only a miracle could catapult one of them to number one. The wait for the next German overall winner of the Four Hills Tournament will most likely continue.