Germany soars to the next gold

Germany (Karl Geiger, Richard Freitag, Stephan Leyhe, Markus Eisenbichler) won the team competition in Innsbruck with 987.5 points ahead of Austria (Philipp Aschenwald, Michael Hayboeck, Daniel Huber, Stefan Kraft; 930.9 points) and Japan (Yukiya Sato, Daiki Ito, Junshiro Kobayashi, Ryoyu Kobayashi; 920.2 points).

After the 1-2 finish on Saturday, when Markus Eisenbichler won the individual event ahead of Karl Geiger, it was the next successful day on the Bergisel in Innsbruck for the team of Germany. The last time a German team claimed this title was 18 years ago. Sven Hannawald, Michael Uhrmann, Alexander Herr and Martin Schmitt won gold in Lahti 2001, two years after Germany won this team title for the first time ever (Ramsau / AUT).
The German team celebrated this success on the Bergisel in Innsbruck enthusiastically.

Here's what the German jumpers had to say:
Stephan Leyhe: "We showed a very strong performance. Such a dominant performance was maybe not expected, but we are just happy about it. World Champion - unbelievable. My first jump was solid, the second one was like the ones I had made during the course of this season. When you enjoy jumping, then you also perform well."

Karl Geiger: "It was great, an incredible performance. We all showed such good jumps, it was awesome. Today we will enjoy this success, then we have to adjust to the new hill in Seefeld and we want to take the positive energy from here to there."

Markus Eisenbichler: "It was a great competition, I was extremely happy that I could be part of it. The other three did an amazing job. I'm just so happy, this was the most important competition for me here. Winning the title was a big goal and also a wish. We knew that it will be hard work. Yesterday I spoke to Karl and Richard and said that we just have to make normal jumps and then we'll have to see what the others are doing. I wouldn't have dreamed that everything goes that well."

The local heroes of Austria enthused the crowds on the stands at the Bergisel. After defending champion Stefan Kraft could win a medal yesterday, the Austrian team gave the fans a reason to celebrate with their second place today. Daniel Huber said after the competition: "This is really cool. Today everything worked well for me in both rounds. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed myself. Congratulations to the entire team, we did an amazing job today. I was so nervous, somebody could have cut off one of my fingers and I wouldn't have noticed it."

A very strong performance was also shown by the athletes of Japan around Ryoyu Kobayashi. After a tough battle with the team of Poland, Japan came in third and could celebrate the well-deserved bronze medal.

The teams of Poland and Norway, that came in first and second in the last World Championships in Lahti two years ago, followed in fourth and fifth. The sixth place went to Slovenia, ahead of Switzerland and the jumps of the Czech Republic.

The best athlete today was someone who couldn't win a medal with his team: Killian Peier of Switzerland, who won bronze yesterday, would have won an individual ranking today. This is more than a confirmation of the outstanding performance the Swiss showed yesterday.

The World Championships continue for the ski jumpers on Tuesday with the training on the HS 109 normal hill in Seefeld.
The first training sessions of the ladies will take place on Monday at 1 pm CET and 4 pm CET.

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