The German ski jumpers around a weak Olympic champion Andreas Wellinger have no chance in team flying in Vikersund. Norway celebrates the most superior victory in flight history.
Andreas Wellinger sneaked away tired, at the end of a long season, Pyeongchang’s golden boy couldn’t make it: The German ski jumpers clearly sailed past the podium during team flying in Vikersund, also because of a failure of the Olympic champion.
In the most superior ski flight victory in history through Norway, DSV eagles were only in fourth place with a huge deficit.
“Actually it shouldn’t be a matter of strength, I feel brutally fit”, said the helpless Wellinger on ARD, who lost 60 m to the best in both rounds on the Norwegian Monsterbakken. As only the German record holder Markus Eisenbichler fulfilled the expectations, national coach Werner Schuster made a destructive judgement.
“If Severin Freund, our best ski pilot, is injured at home and then Andreas Wellinger and Richard Freitag don’t show their best either, then we get a huge package here,” the German quartet was 70 metres behind third place.
World Champion Norway, for whom Robert Johansson achieved the longest flight of the day with 240.5 m, was ahead of Poland (1301.7) and Slovenia (1284.0) with 1567.3 points and a huge lead of 221 m (!) – after the first seven jumps the Norwegians had significantly more points than all other teams with eight. Germany came to 1200.0 points.
Wellinger (Ruhpolding) was the first German jumper to reach only 178.5 and 172.0 m, losing about 60 m each to the best pilots in his group. Karl Geiger (Oberstdorf) with an even weaker first run of 164.5 m and 195.5 m was also disappointing.
Eisenbichler (Siegsdorf) with a strong 237.5 and 225.5 m and the third at the World Championships Richard Freitag with 184.5 and 215.5 m in very bad wind conditions still ensured damage limitation.
Last year’s world record set by Austrian Stefan Kraft (253.5) at the same location was not at risk. Eisenbichler’s German record (248.0/Planica 2017) also remained untouched.
In the overall standings of the Raw Air series the Pole Kamil Stoch lost some of his lead, but still leads clearly in the fight for the 60,000 Euro victory bonus. On Sunday, five German jumpers are qualified for a single flight in Vikersund for the raw air final.