65 ski jumpers face the qualification for the grand finale of the Four Hills Tournament. A duel between Halvor Egner Granerud and Dawid Kubacki is already apparent in training. skispringen.com reports live!
On Wednesday evening the teams made their way from Innsbruck to Bischofshofen, around 200 kilometers away, where the grand finale of the Four Hills Tournament traditionally takes place on Epiphany.
At the end, it could get exciting again on the Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze: because it is the largest of the four tournament hills, larger point distances can be caught up relatively quickly here. The fight for overall victory can take dramatic turns, especially in changeable wind conditions.
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With his victory on the Bergisel in Innsbruck, Dawid Kubacki at least gained a few points on the overall leader Halvor Egner Granerud. Before the last competition, the Norwegian is 23.3 points ahead of the Pole – that’s the equivalent of almost 13 meters. “I will fight to the end,” said Kubacki, who has already won the tour in 2019/2020.
Halvor Egner Granerud may have missed the Grand Slam he had hoped for, i.e. victory in all four competitions, but even before the final he remains the top favorite for the Golden Eagle and the extra prize money of 100,000 euros. It would be the first Norwegian overall winner since Anders Jacobsen in the 2006/2007 season.
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The German team, on the other hand, faces a historic debacle at the end of the 71st Four Hills Tournament. For the first time since 2016/2017, the ski jumping classic could end without a podium place in a day competition. “It hurts a lot. We actually got off to a good start on the tour, but we’ve fallen back quite a bit now,” said national coach Stefan Horngacher.
The German ski jumpers have been fighting for the overall ranking at least since the qualifying end of Karl Geiger in Innsbruck no chance. As the best DSV ski jumper, Andreas Wellinger only takes eighth place – even a top 3 place in the overall ranking is practically impossible to achieve.
Official training starts at 2:15 p.m., followed by qualification at 4:30 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.