Wellinger celebrates victory in Hinzenbach on Sunday

Andreas Wellinger achieved the almost perfect weekend at the FIS Grand Prix in Hinzenbach. After finishing second on Saturday, the German won the competition on Sunday with a 0.9 point lead over Austria's Jan Hoerl.

Two more Austrians, Stefan Kraft and Daniel Tschofenig, finished in third and fourth place.

The start to the FIS Grand Prix 2024 could hardly have gone better for Andreas Wellinger. With a second place on Saturday and victory on Sunday, Wellinger travels from Hinzenbach to the Grand Prix final in Klingenthal next weekend: “It was very surprising for me that it went so well here in Hinzenbach.

The summer wasn't easy, things have gone uphill in the last few weeks, but I talked to the coaches and set myself a target for Hinzenbach of somewhere between a podium place - if I jump really well - and 20th - 25th place.
It wasn't easy to assess where I stood in international comparison. But with the training on Friday it got better and better and now I've managed two really cool competitions,” said Wellinger happily.

“These results here are very important and valuable for me. The first Grand Prix competitions of the summer are always to be taken with a pinch of salt, but here you can already draw a rough comparison with the competition.
We now all have six weeks until the World Cup starts and you are already quite close to where you want to be in winter, so this is very valuable and I will try to continue to implement the upward trend in training and then the six weeks will be over very quickly and we will be in Lillehammer,” Wellinger analyzed the competition weekend.

Second place went to Austria's Jan Hoerl with a tiny gap of 0.9 points behind Wellinger. Hoerl was still in the lead after the first round and only narrowly lost out to Wellinger in the final: “With second place today and third in yesterday's competition, I am of course super happy with the weekend. A lot is coming together at the moment, even if the last jump wasn't quite perfect - I was a bit too aggressive there. But the basic jumps are right and you can build on that. Now I'm looking forward to the final in Klingenthal and hope that it works as well there as it did here in Hinzenbach,” said Hoerl.
Overall World Cup winner Stefan Kraft finished in third place: The man from Salzburg said: “I'm very happy to finally be on the podium in Hinzenbach, because I really struggle on this hill. It was two days with stable jumps and the 5th and 3rd places show that I am on the right track. Due to the athletes' gala next week, where I have the honor of being one of the three nominees, I will not compete in the Grand Prix final in Klingenthal.”
By forgoing the final in Klingenthal, Kraft is directly paving the way for the duel in the overall Grand Prix standings between Pawel Wasek from Poland and Alex Insam from Italy.

Pawel Wasek was able to leave the better impression today with 5th place in the direct comparison than Alex Insam (10th place today). Wasek leads the overall Grand Prix standings with 323 points before the final competition. Realistically, only Alex Insam (299 points) can still take the overall Grand Prix victory from the Pole, but for that to happen Insam would have to finish well ahead of Wasek in the individual competition in Klingenthal on Saturday.
Wasek therefore has it in his hands to win his first major international title next weekend.

Dawid Kubacki (POL) finished 6th in the daily ranking ahead of Philipp Raimund, Pius Paschke and Karl Geiger (all GER). The German team thus achieved an outstanding team result, as did the team from Austria.

The final of the FIS Grand Prix (Saturday individual competition, Sunday mixed team) is scheduled for next weekend.
Then the final preparations for the World Cup start on November 22nd and 23rd in Lillehammer (NOR) will begin for all teams.

Official result