Andreas Wellinger is German champion

Andreas Wellinger, who was struggling with knee problems this summer and made a successful comeback in the FIS Grand Prix in Hinzenbach and Klingenthal recently, proved his currently very good shape also at the German Ski Jumping championships.

Under difficult conditions, the 22-year-old Bavarian from the club SC Ruhpolding showed the by far best jumps in both rounds on the HS 106 in Oberwiesenthal with 105.5 m and 106.5 m and won his first German championship title with 278.5 points.

"It was a difficult competition, but for me it was also an extremely cool one. Both jumps were really good and I'm extremely happy that I can take home this title now", said Wellinger, who is already looking ahead towards the upcoming Olympic winter. "There's still a long way to go, the start of the winter season is six weeks away and it's about three months until the Olympics. There's a lot of work left to do. I will try to stabilize my jump and if I can do that, then I'll be jumping on a higher level and I can fight for the top spots."

Karl Geiger from Oberstdorf scored 255.5 points with his jumps of 102 m and 99.5 m and came in second. "Four or five years ago I could already achieve such a good result, now I'm happy that I could be among the very best once again. This is just really nice", Karl Geiger said after the competition.

20-year-old Fabian Seidl surprised in third with 98.5 m and 100.5 m and a total of 247.5 points. "This is incredible. At the Grand Prix in Klingenthal I couldn't qualify for the second round and here everything changed. That's what I have been working really hard for and today this work paid off for me."

Justin Nietzel finished fourth, followed by Markus Eisenbichler (5th), Pius Paschke (6th), Richard Freitag (7th) and Andreas Wank (8th).

Luca Roth won the national title in the juniors category with 216.0 points (93.5 m and 91.5 m), the second and third place went to Constantin Schmid (97.5 m and 86 m; 211.5 points) and Cedric Weigel (94 m and 78.5 m; 186.5 points).

The team competition on Thursday was canceled due to the strong wind. "I think it was okay to cancel today. The competition would have been far from safe and fair", said head coach Werner Schuster, who still sees room for improvement for his team. "We had a well-deserved winner, Andi Wellinger is in a very good shape. Others still have some work to do. I would want the level of the whole team to be a bit closer. It was better in training already and we'll work on that."