Karl Geiger brings Willingen to a boil
Feb 16, 2019·Ski Jumping
Oberstdorf-native Karl Geiger brought the Ski Jumping arena in Willingen to a boil with the second World Cup win of his career on Saturday evening. In front of 23 500 enthusiastic fans, Poland's Kamil Stoch and overall World Cup leader Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan followed in second and third. In bright sunshine and springlike temperatures, the huge crowd celebrated a peaceful Ski Jumping party.
With 142 m and the longest jump of the day of 150.5 m on the Muehlenkopf-hill, Karl Geiger scored a total of 311.1 points. The 26-year-old came in four points ahead of Stoch and 6.4 points ahead of Kobayashi. "I think by now I stopped shaking, I was full of adrenaline. It was an incredible competition, an incredible atmosphere, simply amazing. My goal for tomorrow is to show such jumps once again and then I'll see what the outcome will be. Jumping here today was so much fun, not every day can be like that", the overwhelmed winner told after the competition. For Geiger, this was the second World Cup win of his career, after his victory in Engelberg (SUI) last December.
With Stoch in second and Piotr Zyla and Dawid Kubacki in fourth and fifth, the Poles once again showed a top team performance. Kamil Stoch explained: "I'm satisfied with my performance today, I did everything I could. Both of my jumps were at a really good level, I'm just not happy about the landing of the second jump because I could've done it much better."
Jakub Wolny and Maciej Kot of the Polish team failed to make the cut for the final round of the best 30 today.
The same fate was surprisingly shared by the two Germans Stephan Leyhe and Markus Eisenbichler. The two top athletes are usually regulars in the final round, but in Willingen they couldn't qualify in 35th and 36th. "It can go really fast here in Willingen, the differences can be huge on this hill if you have a bad jump. But I'm sure that both will be among the best again tomorrow", Karl Geiger said about the performance of his teammates.
It was a strong day for the Swiss team with Kilian Peier in eighth and Simon Ammann in 15th. In his first jump, Simon Ammann was redolent of his best days, not only because of the distance he jumped but also because of the way he celebrated. Ammann is getting in top shape right in time for the World Championships.
Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi now leads the overall World Cup with 1520 points, ahead of Kamil Stoch (1109 points) and Austria's Stefan Kraft (991 points).
The second competition in Willingen starts on Sunday at 3:15 pm CET, and, with the good weather forecast, more than 20 000 fans are expected again.
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