Stephan Leyhe surprisingly took fourth place in the German ski jumping team for the team competition of the Olympic Winter Games.
The Willinger replaced Markus Eisenbichler from the squad on Sunday with three good training jumps. Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger, Richard Freitag and Karl Geiger were seeded for the decision of the big hill on Monday (21.30 o’ clock OZ/13.30 o’ clock CET).
Leyhe, who had had to watch in both individual jumps, jumped 138.0 m and two times 131.0 m in practice.”He jumps very stable and doesn’t have any outliers. That’s why we preferred him to Markus,”said national coach Werner Schuster. Leyhe won two training rounds and finished third once, but only 21 of 67 jumpers were at the start, who also had more starts than in the competition. Eisenbichler jumped 130.0 and 130.5 m on Saturday. Leyhe was the only DSV eagle to take part in the training on Sunday.
Four years ago in Sochi, Germany won the gold medal. The only remaining starter from the 2014 Gold Fourth is Wellinger. Ex-world champion Severin Freund is injured, Andreas Wank and Marinus Kraus are not in the senior squad at the moment. A surprise is the use of the last strong violinist, who only competed in three team jumps in the World Cup. In the current season he was third in Titisee-Neustadt.