Ryoyu Kobayashi is Olympic champion

Ryoyu Kobayashi is the new Olympic champion on the normal hill. In an exciting competition on the HS 106 hill in the Snow Ruyi National Ski Jumping Center of Beijing, the 25-year-old Japanese came in ahead of Austria's Manuel Fettner and Poland's Dawid Kubacki.

Kobayashi laid the foundation for his success already in the first round with the longest jump (104.5 m) and the highest score. In the second round, a relatively short jump of 99.5 m was enough for Kobayashi to defend his top position.
"I can't believe it all. My two jumps were perfect, which is something I'm very pleased with", the new Olympic champion said.

With Austrian Manuel Fettner, a 36-year-old veteran was the surprise of the day. Fettner had already jumped great in training on the Olympic hill in Beijing and proved his strong shape with the second place today. "Honestly, I'm speechless, I don't know how I should do an interview right now", Fettner said in a first statement to the Austrian TV station ORF. "It's a real rollercoaster in my head now. During the jump, I was completely focused and didn't get distracted. In the second round, I was able to show my best jump, I'm overwhelmed. It was a cool journey for me with many ups and downs. If I wouldn't have enjoyed it that much I would have given up. Unfortunately, there are no normal hill competitions in the World cup, otherwise, I would have been more successful."

David Kubacki was third and won a bronze medal that makes the Polish team almost forget how unsatisfying this winter has been for them so far. Poland's president Duda celebrated the medal in the stadium of Beijing. "I believed in this, that some time, I don't know when, but sometime it will be really great again and it happens to be today," Kubacki. said.
Peter Prevc narrowly missed the medal this afternoon. The Slovene came in only 0.5 points behind Kubacki. Right behind Prevc, Russia's Evgeniy Klimov finished on a strong fifth place, Kamil Stoch was sixth.

For the German team, it was a disappointing day, their best was Constantin Schmid in 11th, Karl Geiger was 15th. "I risked it all today, this worked well in Oberstdorf last year, it didn't work out for me this time. But there's nothing I could have done differently, I gave my all. I'm simply struggling on this hill, even if the second jump was not that bad. I hope the large hill suits me better", Geiger said after the competition. Stephan Leyhe was 24th, Markus Eisenbichler failed to make the cut for the final round in 31st.

The mixed team competition will be held on Monday, starting at 12:45 pm CET (Start list Mixed Team).

Full results