Markus Eisenbichler and Richard Freitag ahead in the qualification

Day 4 of the RAW AIR Tournament in Norway. After five jumps on the Holmenkollen in Oslo it was time for the qualification in Lillehammer today. Under very difficult conditions, the German team could do extremely well there. Markus Eisenbichler, Richard Freitag and Andreas Wellinger showed fantastic jumps, only RAW AIR leader Stefan Kraft of Austria could keep up with them.

Markus Eisenbichler had the best jump of the day with 140.5 m. Already in training Eisenbichler proved that the Lysgaardsbakken in Lillehammer, where he achieved his first World Cup podium last December, suits him really well. With his 140.5 m jump, Markus Eisenbichler scored a total of 163.1 points and that earned him the first place this evening.

"It was difficult to jump today, because it was really windy. After the take-off there was strong tail wind, at the end of the flight there was head wind or no wind at all. I think it was hard for everybody, but I had a really good jump. During this RAW AIR Tour I'll focus on making good jumps, I'll then look at the overall ranking in Vikersund", Eisenbichler said after the qualification.

His teammate Richard Freitag had a great jump of 134.5 m and was second with 151.9 points. Austria's Stefan Kraft proved his fantastic shape in third, he came in only the tiny margin of 0.1 points behind Freitag. Andreas Wellinger finished fourth, 0.4 points behind Kraft. "My jump in training was almost perfect, now in the qualification the wind conditions were not easy and we had to wait for a long time at the start. I'm satisfied with my result, I tried my best and it was okay", said Stefan Kraft.

Besides the German athletes, the local heroes of Norway impressed in front of their home crowd. Robert Johansson, Andreas Stjernen, Anders Fannemel and Johann Andre Forfang presented themselves in a strong shape and finished fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth. Best Pole today was Piotr Zyla in tenth, Maciej Kot was 12th and Kamil Stoch 25th.

The two Slovenes Anze Semenic and Nejc Dezman, Poland's Dawid Kubacki and Russia's Evgeniy Klimov surprisingly failed to make the cut for the competition tomorrow.

In the overall ranking of the RAW AIR, Markus Eisenbichler (3rd) could gain more than ten points on Stefan Kraft, who still leads ahead of Andreas Wellinger.

The competition in Lillehammer will start on Tuesday at 5 pm.