The German ski jumping medal hopeful Richard Freitag has said goodbye to the Olympic Games with a severe setback. One day before leaving for Pyeongchang, the 26-year-old Saxon was only 28th in the final rehearsal at Willingen in Hesse after two weak jumps, winning the Norwegian Johann Andre Forfang and losing the lead in the overall World Cup at Poland’s top star Kamil Stoch.
“It was a bit difficult today, it was fidgety in the air. At the Olympics, it’s now on the small hill, so it doesn’t matter at all what result you’re going to Pyeongchang with,”said Freitag, who was able to avoid a fall in difficult wind conditions in the second run with difficulty, on ZDF television. National coach Werner Schuster said:”Richard had a lot of bad luck with the wind today.”
Forfang prevailed with jumps to 147.5 m and 144.5 m (271.4 points) ahead of Stoch (269.4), while Stoch’s compatriot Piotr Zyla (269.4) finished third. Friday jumped only 128.0 and 118.5 m (190.4). Best German was Markus Eisenbichler (Siegsdorf) in sixth place. Vice World Champion Andreas Wellinger (Ruhpolding), who had won last year’s individual jumping event in Willingen, finished tenth.
In the first jumping event in front of 22,000 spectators at the sold-out Mühlenkopf ski jump on Friday, Friday, the second place came just behind winner Daniel Andre Tande (Norway).
Stoch won the overall victory in the new “Willingen Five”classification of five jumps since Friday’s qualifying round with a prize money of 25,000 euros. In the overall World Cup, the double Olympic champion of Sochi now leads with 863 points ahead of Friday (820), who missed the chance to be the second German jumper after Jens Weißflog to travel to the 1984 Olympic Games in the yellow jersey.
Friday’s 17th place after the first run in unfavorable winds had lost all chances of a good result early on. In the second round, he tried with anger in his belly, but had to stop the jump early.
The other two German Olympic riders remained within their means. Local hero Stephan Leyhe from Willingen finished 18th. Karl Geiger (Oberstdorf) came in 22nd place.