Kobayashi celebrates victory in Wisla

One week after his overall victory at the 72nd Four Hills Tournament, which the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi achieved with four second places in the daily rankings, Kobayashi celebrated his first one-day success of the season at the Ski Jumping World Cup in Wisla (POL).
Kobayashi won in a dramatic final ahead of Stefan Kraft from Austria and Andreas Wellinger from Germany.

For the 27-year-old overall World Cup winner of the 2018/19 and 2021/22 winters, it was his 31st World Cup victory in total and his first this season. " I had two very good jumps, especially the second one was strong. I can celebrate and be happy with my jumps today. I feel very good here in Poland," explained the Japanese, who managed to rise from 5th place in the first round to win the day with an outstanding final jump.

Second place went to Stefan Kraft, the next record man. Kraft had gone into the competition slightly ailing after suffering from an infection last week. "I've been feeling really bad since Tuesday, luckily I got some energy back this morning. I'm very proud of the two jumps today, it's almost unbelievable for me that it worked out so well after last week".
With his 108th podium finish in total, Kraft drew level with Janne Ahonen, with both now jointly leading the all-time leaderboard. "It's unbelievable to be right at the top of these statistics with ski jumping god Janne Ahonen, it's really something very special for me," said a delighted Kraft.

Third place went to the currently best German Andreas Wellinger. After setting a fabulous hill record of 144.5 meters yesterday, Wellinger once again produced good jumps: "I'm very happy with my jumps in Wisła, they were at a high level. It was quite a difficult competition because the wind changed and that wasn't easy for the jury, but I did a good job today and I'm satisfied."

The battle for the overall World Cup is developing into a three-way fight between Ryoyu Kobayashi, Andreas Wellinger and today's second-placed Austrian Stefan Kraft. Kraft is still in the lead in the overall World Cup (989 points) ahead of Andreas Wellinger (757 points) and Ryoyu Kobayashi (691 points).

In the competition in Wisla, which was characterized by difficult wind conditions and numerous short interruptions, the two Slovenians Lovro Kos and Peter Prevc finished in fourth and fifth place, thus securing the team from Slovenia the lead in the overall standings of the Poland Tour. After today's competition, Slovenia leads with 1558.4 points and a lead of 51.2 points over Austria and 74.4 points over Germany.

Jan Hoerl, Michael Hayboeck and Manuel Fettner once again underlined the enormous team strength of the ÖSV eagles this winter with 6th, 7th and 8th places.

The next World Cup for the ski jumpers will take place on Wednesday.
In Szczyrk, just over 20 minutes by car from today's competition venue Wisla, a competition from the normal hill is on the program.
This competition will be the third as part of the Poland Tour. Two World Cup competitions will then follow at the weekend as part of the Tour of Poland in Zakopane.