In the first of two individual ski flying competitions this weekend, the ski jumpers will be fighting for important World Cup points for the penultimate time. During the long-distance hunt in Planica, the eagles even hunt for records. skispringen.com reports live!
The Ski Jumping World Cup finals traditionally take place in Planica, Slovenia. At the end of the longest ski jumping season of all time, a total of three competitions are on the program on the famous Letalnica ski flying hill: two individuals, one team.
In addition to the monster hill in Vikersund, Norway, where the ski jumpers jumped two weeks ago as part of the Raw Air Tour, Letalnica is the largest ski jump in the world. The ski flying world record is still in Norway, but most experts agree that future records can only be set in Planica.
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“It gets very flat very quickly down below. You can’t currently jump much further than 245 here – or at least it’s no longer fun. I don’t think we will see a world record here,” Wellinger said in an interview during the Vikersund weekend skispringen.com. The current hill record in Planica by Ryoyu Kobayashi is 252 meters, the world record in Vikersund by Stefan Kraft is only one and a half meters further at 253.5 meters.
The German team contests the final World Cup weekend on the legendary ski flying hill with a total of seven athletes. In addition to Andreas Wellinger, Karl Geiger, Markus Eisenbichler and Constantin Schmid, Felix Hoffmann and Martin Hamann are also at the start. Pius Paschke is returning to the team for the season finale. In Thursday’s qualification, only Martin Hamann was eliminated early.
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“Pius replaces the sick Justin Lisso”, explained national coach Stefan Horngacher before leaving for the “Valley of the Hills” in Slovenia: “We want to say goodbye to Planica with good performances from this season. Understandably, the batteries of the active are largely empty. However, everyone in the team is looking forward to the traditional end of the season in Slovenia.”
The German hopes rest primarily on Karl Geiger, who won the ski flying world championship title on the hill in 2020, and on the recently strong Andreas Wellinger. “I want to show good flights once more and end the season with good performances and positive impressions,” said the only German World Cup winner of the season beforehand.
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But the big top favorites are different this weekend: Halvor Egner Granerud from Norway, who was already the overall World Cup winner, is also one of the narrower favorites, as is the generally strong Austrian Stefan Kraft and the Slovenian local heroes around Timi Zajc and Anze Lanisek.
The trial round starts at 2 p.m., followed by the individual competition at 3 p.m. In addition to the live blog at this point, skisprung.com also gives you the opportunity to to follow all jumps in the FIS live ticker.
