Four Hills Tournament: Cool to triumph – First Kobayashi forgot his skis, then he won

Sport Four Hills Tournament

Cool to triumph – First Kobayashi forgot his skis, then he won

As of: 11:31 p.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes

Impressively consistent: Ryoyu Kobayashi has once again secured his tour triumph

Source: AFP/GEORG HOCHMUTH

Ryoyu Kobayashi has won the Four Hills Tournament for the third time. Even Andreas Wellinger couldn’t prevent this. The first time the Japanese achieved something historical, the third time he achieved a curiosity – and he didn’t let anything deter him.

As easily and confidently as it looked when Ryoyu Kobayashi jumped off the jumps in his eight jumps on this tour, he also easily overcame a mishap on his way to triumph. One that caused him a hectic moment shortly before the tour finale in Bischofshofen.

But the 27-year-old has often attracted attention with his coolness. Back then, for example, in his first tour victory in 2018/19, when he followed Sven Hannawald and the Pole Kamil Stoch and won on all four hills. In the history of the tour with its 72 editions, only these three have achieved this. Kobayashi also ended a long dry spell: the last time a Japanese won the traditional event was 21 years earlier, Kazuyoshi Funaki. Kobayashi followed up in 2021/22.

This time he fended off the attack of Andreas Wellinger, who was just 4.8 points behind before the last competition in Bischofshofen. “I’ll be pretty nervous,” Kobayashi said before the competition. Whether it was because of the excitement or because he was in total focus, the Japanese forgot his skis before the first run.

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Shortly before Kobayashi’s jump, ARD commentator Tom Bartels reported that the Japanese was running back and forth excitedly before taking the lift up to the take-off table. Nobody knew what had happened. The solution came a little later: Kobayashi had forgotten his skis on the way to the lift.

Kobayashi: “I’m a mess”

But he was apparently able to quickly regain his focus and, undeterred by the mishap and the hectic pace, flew to 138 meters – the best distance of the first round. Wellinger landed at 132 meters, so the fight for the tour crown was as good as decided. In the second round, the Japanese completed his tour triple.

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He then told BILD: “I’ve often forgotten my skis. I’m a mess. I keep losing or forgetting something. My backpack that contains my shoes, my glasses, my helmet, gloves.”

The tour podium: Ryoyu Kobayashi (middle), won ahead of Andreas Wellinger and the Austrian Stefan Kraft

Source: dpa/Daniel Karmann

In the end, with his second places on all four tour jumps, he was consistently the best jumper and won with 24.5 points, well ahead of Wellinger, who, from a German perspective, made this tour more exciting than any DSV jumper has for a long time had succeeded. Accordingly, there was a lot of praise and words of comfort from national coach Stefan Horngacher and Sven Hannawald.

Kobayashi becomes the ninth diver in history to win the tournament without an individual victory. A feat that was last achieved by Finn Janne Ahonen in 1998/99, who was the only one to celebrate five overall victories. With his tour triple, Kobayashi is now on par with Helmut Recknagel, Björn Wirkola and Kamil Stoch in terms of the number of victories.

“Ryoyu enjoys life”

Incidentally, Kobayashi was once inspired to ski jumping by his brother Junshiro, who is five years older than him and who celebrated his first and so far only World Cup victory in 2017. The Kobayashis have become a sports and especially ski jumping family in general. In addition to Ryoyu and Junshiro, the youngest brother Tatsunao (22) and sister Yuka (29) also jump from the world’s ski jumps; their father works as a sports and ski instructor.

Who made the three-time tour winner so good? The Finnish coach Janne Väätäinen was Kobayashi’s home coach at the time of his first tour success. Then, in April 2019, the Austrian Richard Schallert took over. Kobayashi starts for Tsuchiya Holding, a housing and real estate company from Sapporo.

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He was already considered a huge talent before the 2018/2019 season, but he previously lacked the right commitment. “I was a bit lazy,” he admitted during his first successful Four Hills Tournament. His coach at the time, Janne Väätäinen, managed to get him on the right track. Ahonen’s former coach made it clear to him that training was number one. And not a joyride in the Porsche – fast cars are Kobayashi’s hobby. In July 2021 he attended Formula 1 in Spielberg at the invitation of the Japanese Alpha Tauri driver Yuki Tsunoda. He likes things fast and stylish.

And he always got along well with ski jumping legend Noriaki Kasai. Once, on Kasai’s birthday, Kobayashi showed up in a gold full-body hooded catsuit and handed over the birthday cake. “Ryoyu enjoys life,” Väätäinen said. “No matter what he does, he has that mischievous smile of a little boy on his face.” That’s one side, Schallert once described the other side: “Ryoyu is really as relaxed as he appears to be. I’ve never seen him short-tempered or angry.”

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