Excitement rises before the normal hill competition in Beijing
Feb 05, 2022·Ski Jumping
The number of top contenders for the medals in Beijing has become smaller after the second training day on the normal hill in the Zhangjiakou National Ski Jumping Centre. But there are still about ten manes on the list of favorites for gold, silver, and, bronze.
Excitement is rising for the ski jumpers at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2022. Some of the favorites were struggling in training, others are doing great on the HS 106 normal hill and now have to be reckoned with in the fight for the medals.
Strong Russians
Like already on Thursday, the Russians around Evgeniy Klimov showed strong performances. Besides Klimov, his teammate Danil Sadreev posted very good jumps as well. Sadreev was second and third and then skipped the third round. Klimov was fourth and fifth in the first two training rounds and he was also the best in the third round yesterday.
Three-time Olympic champion Kamil Stoch might also be able to surprise. Stoch, who was third once this season, has been struggling this winter so far, ended today's training after only one round. But in this round, he was the best with a jump of 101 m.
Various jumpers from Slovenia are also among the favorites. The first real test for the athletes of head coach Robert Hrgota will be Saturday's qualification for the normal hill competition (Sunday, 12 pm CET).
Kraft and Hoerl strong
The two Austrians Jan Hoerl and Stefan Kraft also did very well in the training rounds. Halvor Egner Granerud didn't jump at all today after he gained a lot of self-confidence with his strong jumps on the first day of training. Granerud is high up on the list of the contenders for the medals.
So far, the training didn't go that well for the German top jumpers Markus Eisenbichler and Karl Geiger. But didn't jump as well as they would have wanted on the hill of Beijing so far.
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