The German ski jumpers took third place in a team competition in Lahti, Finland, which was characterized by changing wind conditions. Andreas Wellinger, Stephan Leyhe, Pius Paschke and Philipp Raimund only had to admit defeat to the victorious Norwegians and Austria for overall World Cup leader Stefan Kraft on Saturday. For Germany it was the second third place in the second team competition with four jumpers per team of the winter. This time Raimund came into the team to replace Karl Geiger, who was out of form.
“It’s a turbulent competition. You need a bit of luck,” said Germany’s best jumper Wellinger after his first attempt at 122 meters on ZDF. In the second round he landed after 127 meters. Paschke had also managed such a long sentence before.
“Good, but not very good,” was Wellinger’s conclusion. “I think everyone left a little something behind somewhere.” National coach Stefan Horngacher saw it similarly: “There weren’t any absolute top jumps, but it was solid.”
At the end of the World Cup weekend in northern Europe there is an individual competition this Sunday (4 p.m. on Eurosport, 2nd round also on ZDF). In the first individual on Friday, Wellinger, who was third in the overall standings, came second and thus gained points on the competitors in front of him.
Successes at the Bobsleigh World Championships
Lisa Buckwitz from BRC Thuringia won her first World Championship gold as a bobsleigh pilot. The former pusher, who surprisingly won Olympic gold with Mariama Jamanka in Pyeongchang in 2018, beat Laura Nolte with Vanessa Mark from Eintracht Frankfurt by five hundredths of a second in Winterberg on Saturday.
The two-man Olympic champion from Beijing, who rode with Deborah Levi from Potsdam, missed her first World Cup double after her victory in the monobob. Third place went to defending champion Kim Kalicki from TuS Eintracht Wiesbaden with her Winterberger pusher Leonie Fiebig.
“All three did a great race and built up pressure,” said national coach René Spies on ZDF: “Lisa and Vanessa are the deserved winners. Overall, it’s a great thing for us with the three of them.”
Monobob world champion Nolte was equally strong with start number one and broke the nine-year-old track record set by former world champion Anja Schneiderheinze (56.54 seconds) in 55.93 seconds. This was then immediately increased by Kalicki to 55.89 seconds. However, Kalicki made a small mistake in the second run and fell back to third place.
Published/Updated: Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1 Katja Sturm Published/Updated:
In the third run, Buckwitz drove almost squeaky clean and defended her lead with the fastest time, while Nolte made a few mistakes on the track despite having the best starting time. In the fourth and final run, Kalicki and Nolte put the pressure on with their respective track record runs, but Buckwitz remained cool: “I knew it would be close in the end, but it was enough.”
