Karl Geiger wins the 1000th World Cup

Karl Geiger won the 1'000th Ski Jumping World Cup in Lahti (FIN) in an outstanding manner. In a high-level competition on Sunday evening, the Oberstdorf-native finished ahead of the two Austrians Stefan Kraft and Michael Hayboeck.

This was the sixth World Cup win for Karl Geiger, the fourth this season. And it was an important step for him in order to remain close to Stefan Kraft in the battle for the overall World Cup title. Kraft won the first competition in Lahti on Friday ahead of Geiger.

Today Geiger was already in the lead after the first round and he then decided this competition with an outstanding final jump on 130 m in the final. "It was a great day for me. My jumps were really, really good and it's incredible that I could win the 1000th World Cup competition. But winning is always special and you're always happy about it, no matter if it's the 1000th or the 1001st competition. Being the last one to jump in the final is always great because you know you have at least a bit of a lead. My goal for the RAW AIR is to jump like I did this weekend", said the happy winner.

Stefan Kraft now leads the World Cup with 1613 points, Karl Geiger is second with 1495 points. So the point difference is the same now as it was before the weekend in Lahti. It remains really exciting in the overall World Cup before the RAW AIR starts next weekend with the competitions in Oslo.

It was nearly perfect today. Michael and I had to wait for a long time to be on the podium together and now I'm really happy about that. After a windy and snowy start of the day, it was a great and fair competition. It was a very good day. Now I just want to enjoy the moment together with Michael", said Stefan Kraft.

For Michael Hayboeck, the third place today was his first podium since 2018, when he was third in Oslo. "I'm really satisfied, I never thought I could make it to the podium today. The whole season has not been that easy for me, in the last few weeks it got better and better. The jumps today were my best jumps of the season. My technique is not still not stable enough, I have to continue working on it", said Hayboeck, who took two wins in Lahti 2016 and won two medals at the Nordic World Championships in Lahti 2017.

It was the day of the teams of Germany and Austria. With Constantin Schmid and Stephan Leyhe in fourth and fifth, only athletes of Germany and Austria finished on the top spots today. Besides Geiger, Schmid, and Leyhe, Markus Eisenbichler and Pius Paschke in 17th and 19th completed the strong team result of the Germans.

On the other hand, it was not a good weekend for the Polish team. Their best today was Piotr Zyla in sixth, Kamil Stoch and Dawid Kubacki came in eleventh and twelfth. "I was simply not really fit here. I caught a cold last weekend in Rasnov and that's why I was lacking the strength in my legs here in Lahti", explained Dawid Kubacki, who is the best Pole in the overall World Cup in third.

Ryoyu Kobayashi could not defend his second place after the first round due to a mistake in the final and so the 2018/19 overall World Cup champion finished only seventh today. With Robert Johansson and Daniel Andre Tande, two Norwegians were in today's Top 10. Anze Lanisek was the best Slovene in tenth.

In the 1'000 World Cups in history, Japan's Noriaki Kasai is the athlete with the most starts: He participated in the incredible number of 569 competitions, Switzerland's Simon Ammann is second with 430 starts, Finland's Janne Ahonen follows in 408.

The Ski Jumping World Cup continues next weekend in Oslo, where the RAW AIR will start with an individual and a team competition.

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