The German ski jumpers around Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger won silver in the team competition at the winter games in Pyeongchang.
The quartet with Wellinger, Richard Freitag, Karl Geiger and Stephan Leyhe had to admit defeat with a total of 1075.7 points only Norway (1098.5). Bronze went to Poland (1072.4) after a long time of exciting triathlon.
Wellinger, a member of the German gold team around Severin Freund in Sochi in 2014, was the first German ski jumper to win three medals in an Olympic edition.
The 22-year-old had previously won gold from the normal hill in South Korea and silver from the Great Bakken. Internationally, this feat has only been achieved by eight jumpers. For Germany, it was the sixth team medal in the last seven games.
Not to beat was top favourite Norway with the renowned quartet of ski flying world champion Daniel Andre Tande, the two-time Olympic third place winner Robert Johansson, Andreas Stjernen and Johann Andre Forfang.
For the Scandinavians, it was the first team gold medal in Olympic history and also the first large jump gold medal since 1964 by Toralf Engan. Four years ago in Sochi, Norway had only finished sixth.
The competition started almost perfectly for the German team, after Geiger’s strong jump to 136.0 m the quartet was in second place.
“The first step has been taken, now there are seven more,”Geiger said. Leyhe (128.0 m) lost some ground to the leading Norwegians, but Friday (134.5) and Wellinger (140.0) shortened the gap again. After the first round, the DSV quartet was just one metre behind Norway – and one metre ahead of Poland.
After Geiger’s (134.0) and Leyhe’s (129.0) second jumps, the DSV team dropped back to third place for the first time, while Norway divided. Friday (134.5), not nominated for the team after weak individual results in 2014, but stayed close to the poles.
In the last duel, the two single Olympic gold medallists fought for silver and bronze. Wellinger and Stoch both jumped to 134.5, Wellinger got more points – and climbed to the silver position.