Johann Andre Forfang wins the qualification

After the terrible weather conditions during the first competition of the 66th 4-Hills-Tournament in Oberstdorf, athletes and fans could enjoy perfect weather and great conditions at today's qualification in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. At the end of the day, Norway's Johann Andre Forfang received the winner's check after a jump of 140.5 m (143.8 points). Top favorite Richard Freitag presented himself strong again and came in fourth. The Poles Dawid Kubacki, Stefan Hula, and Kamil Stoch were also jumping well.

I hope for fair conditions in the competition tomorrow and if I can continue to jump like I did in the last couple of days then hopefully I'll be able to fight for the win. Good jumps on that same level are my goal for the New Year's competition", said Forfang, who already had the longest jump in the qualification in Oberstdorf.

Richard Freitag explained: "The training was okay, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's fun to show good jumps. The level is extremely high and the field is very, very close, it will be exciting tomorrow."

Last season's winner and overall leader Kamil Stoch of Poland finished sixth and emphasized his ambitions on defending the title at the 4-Hills-Tournament.  "It was a good day for me, the jump was okay so I'm satisfied. We can be happy to have such a strong team and we appreciate it. This is the key to success", said Stoch.

The fifth place in the qualification went to Japan's Junshiro Kobayashi, who is very consistent and can achieve a top result in this 4-Hills-Tournament. Three Slovenes came in on the places eight, nine and ten: Jernej Damjan, Anze Semenic, and Peter Prevc confirmed the positive trend in the team of head coach Goran Janus. Also youngster Timi Zajc showed a convincing performance and was 16th.

Behind World Cup leader Richard Freitag, his teammates Markus Eisenbichler and Karl Geiger tied for 12th, Andreas Wellinger was 15th and Stephan Leyhe 20th.

It was a really bad day for two of the all-time greats of Ski Jumping: Simon Ammann and Noriaki Kasai finished only 51st and 58th and failed to make the cut to qualify for the New Year's event.

The competition in Garmisch-Partenkirchen will start on Monday at 2 pm CET (trial round at 12:30 pm CET).