Halvor Egner Granerud celebrated his clear victory in Oberstdorf.
Photo: imago/Sven Simon
The mission seems almost hopeless, but there is still great optimism. ‘Of course he’ll be hard to beat if he keeps this up. But the tour has its own rules, I’ve experienced that myself,” says the German ski jumper Karl Geiger, adding with a view to the New Year’s jump in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (2 p.m. / ARD and Eurosport): “If he allows himself to make mistakes, others will be in the starting blocks.«
“He” means the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud, who won the opening event of the 71st Four Hills Tournament in Oberstdorf by a huge margin on Thursday evening. After the mixed performances of the previous winter, his hunters included, quite surprisingly, two Germans: Karl Geiger and double Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger. Your gap in the overall standings to high-flyer Granerud seems huge. The fourth-placed violinist has to catch up almost 10.5 meters (18.8 points) in the remaining three stages of the tour, Wellinger in sixth place even 15 meters (27.2 points).
Granerud won the tournament opener on Schattenberg ahead of the two Poles Piotr Żyła (13.4 points behind) and Dawid Kubacki (17.5) with the largest lead in eleven years. Back in the winter of 2011/2012, the Austrian Gregor Schlierenzauer triumphed in Oberstdorf and then became the superior overall winner. But not even the 26-year-old Granerud himself seems convinced that it will be the same this time. When asked about this, the Norwegian immediately recalled the following winter, when his compatriot Anders Jacobsen led by 12.5 points at half-time of the tour and still lost the ski jumping Grand Slam against Schlierenzauer.
“Of course, a 13-point lead is better than zero. Hopefully things will be better in Garmisch than last year,” says Granerud thoughtfully. A year ago, after a strong second place at the start in Oberstdorf, he lost all chances of overall victory with an eighth place in the New Year’s competition. It wasn’t the only time in his career that Granerud lost his nerve at the crucial moment. In the winter of 2020/21, he won the overall World Cup with ease, but missed out on the podium in the individual competitions, both at the tournament and at the World Championships in Oberstdorf.
Psychologically, Granerud “picked up a big backpack – he has to carry it now. And we’ll continue to step on the gas,” says national coach Stefan Horngacher. Despite the large deficit of his top duo, he has by no means given up the dream of the first overall German tour in 21 years. Last winter, Geiger came to the tour as the overall leader and broke under the great pressure. This time, the German pilots competed as outsiders and, as hunters, are getting closer to the top of the world with every jump.
“That was my best result in Oberstdorf,” said Wellinger with a smile. After three and a half years of suffering with various serious injuries, the 27-year-old is on the verge of building on old successes again. An ankle injury has almost healed and after changing skis before the season, the material also fits. Wellinger was twice the fastest in the approach, now only the flight has to be perfect.
The four-time world champion Karl Geiger is also getting better and better at flying, as not only Horngacher observed: “In Oberstdorf Karl got the competition Geiger out for the first time and got on the pedal.” Which probably means that Geiger has more self-confidence again and aggressiveness jumps.
But is that enough to endanger former orienteer Granerud? His trainer Alexander Stöckl believes that his top man has also gained a lot of self-confidence for the New Year’s competition and the rest of the tour thanks to the “super confirmation in Oberstdorf”. In individual training before Christmas, Granerud successfully worked on his latent take-off error, which had repeatedly pushed him to the very edge of the landing slope during the course of the flight. “The skis come faster now, the flight position is better and the jump is more stable,” explains Stöckl. And so Granerud can aim for the first Norwegian Tournament victory since Anders Jacobsen 16 years ago.
