Who can beat Halvor Egner Granerud?
Feb 27, 2021·Ski Jumping
Halvor Egner Granerud is the top favorite for winning the normal hill World Championship title 2021. The Norwegian won the qualification on Friday with a jump of 105.5 m (144.2 points) clearly ahead of Slovenia's Anze Lanisek (103 m; 137.4 points) and Austria's Stefan Kraft (101.5 m; 134.4 points).
World Cup leader Granerud found the perfect rhythm for the normal hill in Oberstdorf on the third day of training, whoever wants to win the title on Saturday, has to beat Halvor Egner Granerud. The man, who has already won 11 World Cups this winter is definitely the one to beat here.
Anze Lanisek of Slovenia and Stefan Kraft are the ones who came closest to Granerud in Friday's qualification, but they were also not able to beat him.
Granerud's teammate Daniel Andre Tande was fourth in the qualification, Yukiya Sato was the best Japanese in fifth. Kamil Stoch and defending champion Dawid Kubaki came in sixth and seventh, but they were already almost 13 points behind Granerud, that's a lot on a normal hill.
Young Russian Danil Sadreev showed a very strong performance in the qualification and finished tenth, Sadreev is a man for the future, there's no doubt. The best German was Karl Geiger in 10th, Markus Eisenbichler was 14th, but he still is one of the top contenders on Saturday.
The first medal event of the ski jumpers at the 2021 WSC, the individual competition on the normal hill, starts on Saturday at 4:30 pm CET.
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