Happy with second and third place: Pius Paschke (left) and Stephan Leyhe Image: EPA
At the start of the new ski jumping season, the German athletes immediately set an exclamation point: In Ruka, two DSV Adlers landed directly on the podium, qualification winner Andreas Wellinger came fourth.
The German ski jumpers started the World Cup winter with a strong team performance and great success. In the whirlwind of Ruka flakes, veteran Pius Paschke completely surprisingly came second on Saturday. After jumps of 142 and 142.5 meters, the Bavarian was only beaten by the outstanding Austrian Stefan Kraft (144 and 143 meters). Behind him, Stephan Leyhe came in third place. Qualification winner Andreas Wellinger completed an outstanding German team result in fourth place.
“We have already turned a few screws. We haven’t lost our ski jumping philosophy. The boys are in great shape. It’s going really well. We have a great team atmosphere, things are going well,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher on ARD. Behind the strong trio of Paschke, Leyhe and Wellinger, Philipp Raimund also impressed in seventh place, Karl Geiger in eleventh and Martin Hamann in twelfth. In the meantime, four Germans had led the rankings in the first round.
Some top athletes fared worse. Last year’s overall World Cup winner Halvor Egner Granerud from Norway didn’t get higher than 16th place. Poland’s ski jumping icon Kamil Stoch had no chance at all in 43rd place. There is another individual on the program on Sunday (4:15 p.m.).
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The unity is considered the Horngacher team’s greatest asset. The team was so strong in preparation that there was no place for former individual world champion Markus Eisenbichler. For ski jumpers it is a season without the Nordic World Ski Championships and without the Winter Olympics. The highlights are the Four Hills Tournament around the turn of the year and the Ski Flying World Championships at Kulm in Austria in January.
