The German ski jumpers missed the possible jump on the podium at the team competition in Lahti, Finland. Even blunders from the competition were not used. At half time, the DSV quartet was still on course for the podium, but in the end they only managed fifth place.
The German ski jumping men missed another place on the podium on the penultimate World Cup weekend of the winter. In the line-up of Andreas Wellinger, Felix Hoffmann, Markus Eisenbichler and Karl Geiger, it was only enough for fifth place in the team competition on Saturday (03/25/2023). For a long time they had good prospects in the race, but with one exception they didn’t show any really good jumps in the second round.
Victory went to the superior Austrians, who came out ahead of Slovenia and Poland with almost 26 points. The quartet from Slovenia showed great fighting spirit and was even able to compensate for a 95-meter hop by Domen Prevc in the first round.
Eisenbichler almost falls
After rather weak training attempts, Andreas Wellinger showed a solid jump of 119.5 meters in the first round despite unfavorable winds shortly after the jump. The German team was initially in second place. Felix Hoffmann justified his nomination for the last World Cup of the season with his first jump. The Thuringian confirmed the impressions from the training sessions and jumped the same distance as Wellinger. The DSV quartet just passed Austria to the top.
Markus Eisenbichler showed the longest jump to date with 126 meters, but once again had problems landing and almost fell forward. He got numerous points deducted, which allowed Austria to push back after Jan Hörl’s 128.5 meters. Karl Geiger was a bit too passive on his first jump and landed at 116.5 meters. So the German team was in third place at half-time, Poland moved up to second place behind Austria thanks to Kamil Stoch.
Wellinger misses the jump and leaves meters
In the second round, Andreas Wellinger continued to lose ground to the opponents in front of him and now also had to let Slovenia pass. After his 117.5 meters, the gap to Poland (132 meters through Piotr Zyla) grew from almost five to 21 meters. Austria was still in the lead. “The jump was too early, then the ski doesn’t go in properly and so in the end the height in the slope is missing“, is his brief analysis on ZDF. Before the jump, there was also a lack of clarity as to the order in which the jumps would be made, which caused additional unrest. But Wellinger did not want to accept that as an excuse that his jump was simply not good enough.
Hoffmann showed no nerves in the second round either, had his technique under control and grinned for the cameras after his 127 meters. But since his opponents didn’t jump much shorter either, he couldn’t really make up for anything. Even so, he was”very satisfied“With his performance. Even Eisenbichler’s 121 meters did not improve the position of the German team, so he waved it off in frustration. The podium was now 13 meters behind, out of reach.”I am not satisfied with the whole day today. The hill actually suits me extremely well, but I always make small mistakes at the take-off“Explained Eisenbichler afterwards.
In the end, Karl Geiger had to come off the beam in very changeable conditions and landed at 125 meters. Norway also overtook the German team by just 0.3 points.
