Andreas Wellinger: Quali win and hill record
Aug 31, 2018·Ski Jumping
Andreas Wellinger (GER) won the final qualification of the 65th 4-Hills-Tournament and also set a new hill record. On the HS 140 Paul-Ausserleitner-hill in Bischofshofen (AUT), Wellinger jumped on 144.5 m (144.4 points). Austria's Manuel Fettner (141.5 m) and Stephan Leyhe of Germany (142 m) came in second and third.
"Cool, that's my first ever hill record", Wellinger said after his great jump. Wellinger already did very well in training and in the qualification he improved the record of Japan's Daiki Ito, set in 2005, by 1.5 m. With his performance the athlete of the ski club in Ruhpolding also won the prize money of 2000,- Euro and is now one of the top favorites in the competition. In the K.O. round Wellinger will face his teammate Markus Eisenbichler, who skipped the qualification.
Under again difficult conditions and temperatures of about - 5°C, the qualification started with a delay of 15 minutes due to the heavy snowfall.
Poles top again
Besides the Top 3, Piotr Zyla and Maciej Kot of Poland finished fourth and fifth and so the Polish athletes showed a strong performance once again.
Tande vs. Stoch and maybe Kraft
The big final for the overall title of the 4-Hills-Tournament will take place tomorrow. Overall leader Daniel Andre Tande had a bad jump in the qualification and was only 39th. Stoch, on the other hand, had a strong first training jump of 141 m and skipped the other two rounds due to pain in his knee and the shoulder injury he sustained in his crash in Innsbruck. Despite these problems Stoch is still in a great shape. It remains to be seen if Austria's Stefan Kraft, who suffers from a stomach flu, will be able to fight for the win. Kraft finished 20th today.
Excitement is definitely guaranteed in the final event.
For Simon Ammann, who was only 55th and failed to make the cut for the competition, it was a said good-bye from the 65th 4-Hills-Tournament. The Swiss can now return home a day earlier than planned.
The final competition of the 65th 4-Hills-Tournament will start on Friday at 4:45 pm CET.
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