Granerud on top again

Halvor Egner Granerud won the high-class ski jumping World Cup in Willingen on Saturday. The Norwegian won on the HS 147 metres Mühlenkopfschanze with jumps of 149.5 and 138 metres (296.6 points) ahead of Slovenia's Anze Anise (150 and 138 metres / 293.9 points) and Dawid Kubacki from Poland (147 and 137 metres / 281.3 points).
In front of his parents, Granerud once again delivered an outstanding performance this winter:

"This season my parents were there in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bischofshofen and then today in Willingen. Four competitions and I won all four, so I think they bring me a lot of luck. It was really great to jump here today. It was also very nice to see that the spectators came early and there were also a lot of spectators in the women's competition, that was fantastic. It was a very good day overall.

Today I congratulated Anze because my jump felt very, very good and to win by only 2.4 points was a bit surprising. I think he did a great performance today. If he had won today, I would have just taken my hat off because the level was so high today," Granerud said for whom it was his 21st World Cup win overall. 
The 26-year-old now leads the overall World Cup with 1416 points ahead of Dawid Kubacki (1264 points).

Kubacki said: "I think I'm doing well with Halvor being in the lead in the overall World Cup at the moment. I know that we still have a lot of competitions ahead of us. I had some short phases where I was not so good, but the season is long. You can probably expect that from every athlete, that in such a long season you are sometimes too tired and have to improve your jumps. I'm just happy that I'm on the right track to good jumps at the moment. As I said, the season is long and I will fight until the end. And we will see how it ends".

I can say that I am happy with my performance. It was a step forward today compared to the jumps I did last weekend. I think that's the most positive thing I can say. I am really happy about it. 
There are still things I can improve on my jumps. I know they can be even better, but for now I think we are following the philosophy of taking small steps. What I showed today is a good base and we can work on getting better and better from today."

Anze Lanisek from Slovenia finished second in the day's standings:  
"Nobody is unbeatable. We are all human and we all try to do our best. Right now my best was good for second place and Halvor managed to make better jumps. I hope that I will be able to show the level of my jumps from today in the next competitions.
The fans were really great today. That is something special. I think the arena was completely full and I wish there were more competitions like this with a lot of spectators.

23500 enthusiastic spectators in the sold-out ski jumping arena in Willingen cheered the stars of whom Karl Geiger finished 5th as the best German athlete behind Piotr Zyla from Poland.

"I am very satisfied, the atmosphere was great and it was really fun. I'm glad that everything worked so well after one week of training, we can build on that" explained Geiger after the competition.

Ryoyu Kobayashi, Johann Andre Forfang and Stefan Kraft were ranked 6th to 8th.

Philipp Raimund and Andreas Wellinger made it into the top 10 in 9th and 10th place.

Timi Zajc, who had caused a sensation the day before with his flight to 161,5 metres, finished 12th.

The second men's ski jumping World Cup of the weekend in Willingen will start on Sunday at 16:00.