In view of the high altitude flight of the DSV eagles, Sven Hannawald believes that Germany’s first overall victory in the Four Hills Tournament since his legendary “Grand Slam” 16 years ago has been achieved.
“If you have the outstanding situation of three athletes jumping to victory level at the same time, it would have to be the devil if it didn’t work this year,”said the 43-year-old at Eurosport.
Andreas Wellinger, Richard Freitag and Markus Eisenbichler had occupied positions one, two and four in Nischni Tagil on Sunday, and Friday in the overall World Cup lead ahead of Wellinger “I hope they don’t run out of breath until the tour, but I don’t expect that. It’s time for a German to finally win the tour again,”said Hannawald, who sees the Austrian Stefan Kraft as his fiercest rival.
Hannawald was the only ski jumper to win all four competitions of the 2001/02 tour in one winter. Since then, from a German point of view, only Hannawald himself (second 2002/2003), Michael Neumayer (third in 2007/2008) and Severin Freund (second in 2015/2016) have made it onto the tour podium.
The Four Hills Tournament starts on 30. December traditional in Oberstdorf (30. December). Then the stations in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (1. January), Innsbruck (4. January) and Bischofshofen (6. January).