Siegel, Althaus and Seyfarth win German nationals

The German Ski Jumping championships are already held before the first FIS Grand Prix event of the season and not, as in recent years, in fall. David Siegel, Juliane Seyfarth, and Katharina Althaus took the individual titles in Hinterzarten on Friday evening.

David Siegel, who won his first German national title in 2016, claimed the win on the HS 108 with a jump of 103 m in the first round and the longest jump of the day of 105.5 m in the final. This performance earned him 274.4 points.

The second place went to Stephan Leyhe, who scored a total of 265.5 points with his jumps of 100.5 m and 102.5 m.

After the first half of the competition, a surprise seemed to be possible. At this point Moritz Baer was in the lead, close ahead of Siegel and Leyhe, with a 103.5 m jump. With his second jump of 100.5 m he finished third with 264.4 points. Definitely a big success for the 21-year-old.

After a not so good first jump, defending champion Andreas Wellinger missed the podium this time with 258.0 points and came in fourth. "I'm not completely satisfied. During training yesterday we had a bit more headwind and so everything felt better, but it was a solid competition and there are still a couple of months left until the winter season", the Olympic champion said after the competition.

Local hero Andreas Wank of the ski club in Hinterzarten finished fifth, Pius Paschke, Martin Hamann, and Felix Hoffmann came in sixth, seventh and eight.. Richard Freitag tied for ninth with Julian Hahn.

In the ladies competition, Katharina Althaus and Juliane Seyfarth shared the win with 279.8 points. Althaus jumped on 97.5 m and 99 m, Seyfarth landed at 98 m and 97.5 m. Clearly behind the best two athletes, Gianina Ernst was third with 97 m and 96.5 m (265.0 points).

The Top 3 were followed by Pauline Hessler (4th), Ramona Straub (5th) and Carina Vogt (5th).

The Junior's title went to Constantin Schmid with 250.0 points (97 m and 100m). Luca Roth (103 m and 97.5 m; 248.0 points) and Justin Lisso (99.5 m and 95 m; 233.0 points) were second and third.

The men's competition on Saturday was won by BSV II with Karl Geiger, Max Goller, Philipp Raimund and Markus Eisenbichler with a total of 1056.1 points. The second place went to BSV I, represented by Pius Paschke, Moritz Baer, Constantin Schmid and Andreas Wellinger, with 1042.6 points. The new German national champion David Siegel and his teammates Andreas Wank, Dominik Maylaender and Luca Roth of SBW I came in third with 1034.6 points.

In the ladies' team event, the new German champion Juliane Seyfarth won the title for TSV I together with Pauline Hessler and 523.6 points. Gianina Ernst and Katharina Althaus, who tied for first in the individual event on Friday evening with Juliane Seyfarth, came in second for BSV I with 485.1 points. The third place went to the team SBW with Ramona Straub and Carina Vogt (476.6 points).

Photo: Facebook / DSV Nordisch