Karl Geiger wins Ski Flying event in Planica after one round
Mar 26, 2021·Ski Jumping
Difficult conditions on Friday in Planica led to long interruptions due to which the competition consisted of only one round. But still, it was extremely exciting and Karl Geiger of Germany was the well-deserved winner in the end. The Ski Flying World Champion finished ahead of Ryoyu Kobayashi (JPN) and Slovenia's Bor Pavlovcic.
Geiger claimed a clear win, his eighth in the World Cup, with a jump of 232 m and 237.3 points, followed by yesterday's winner Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan (231 m; 227.7 points) and local hero Bor Pavlovcic (227.5 m; 225.2 points).
Due to the difficult conditions, the jury had to cancel the qualification and the competition started half an hour later as planned with the entire field of competitors (67 athletes) in the first round. While the first round was still in progress, the jury already decided to cancel the second round of the competition because there would not have been enough daylight for the final round.
Today, Geiger could once again show his great Ski Flying skills, even though the Oberstdorf-native had problems with his boots just before his jump. "When I was getting ready to jump, the plastic clasp of my boot broke, you need that to tie it in order to get the necessary stability. The equipment controller then helped me with the ring of the car key and that worked", Geiger explained in an interview.
Geiger remained calm, solved the problem, won the competition, and took the lead in the Planica 7 ranking, which will probably consist of only five jumps due to the cancellation of the qualification and the second round today. "It was not easy today, but my jump was very good, it went really well for me", he said after his win.
The fourth place went to Domen Prevc of Slovenia, followed by Norway's Robert Johansson and Japan's Yukiya Sato. Markus Eisenbichler came in eighth, Daniel Huber was the best Austrian in ninth. Piotr Zyla and Jakub Wolny finished seventh and tenth for Poland.
Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud, who already secured this season's overall World Cup title, was 18th today.
Ryoyu Kobayashi leads the Ski Flying World Cup with 180 points, ahead of Karl Geiger (160 points). This ranking will be decided in the final competition on Sunday.
The team competition tomorrow will start at 10 am CET.
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