“No chance”. The mystery of the defeat of the German jumpers and Horngacher

The Germans counted on at least one medal on the normal hill in Beijing. After all, they have the current World Cup leader Karl Geiger in the line-up and Markus Eisenbichler is sixth. Unexpectedly they both failed and the best German ski jumpers Constantin Schmid was only 11th.

A big disappointment

– It is a great disappointment that the German team did not have any chances in the fight for medals. Before the Olympics, we counted on much more. A few weeks ago we did not imagine that none of our jumpers would even make it to the top ten – says Marco Ries from skispringen.com to Sport.pl.

Geiger was 15th in the end, Stephan Leyhe 13th and Eisenbichler was eliminated after the first round (31st place). The winner was Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi, the second was Austrian Manuel Fettner, and the third was Dawid Kubacki. – It is difficult to say what is the reason for such results. The German jumpers were doing very badly in training and they couldn’t get used to the hill. Karl Geiger seemed really desperate, he couldn’t find a solution. We do not know why things turned out so bad – adds our interlocutor.

Especially Geiger’s performance was a big surprise for our neighbors. The World Cup leader stood on the podium 12 times this season. A year ago he was second on the normal hill at the World Championships in Oberstdorf. As the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” writes, the Germans compared the hill in China to that in Oberstdorf and concluded that they were very similar. However, this did not translate into results. “As if there was a magnet on the bulls,” we read in the German media, which emphasize that their team was brutally verified on Sunday.

History was behind Geiger

also was unable to explain the failure. – What happened is very refreshing. We don’t know what caused it, it’s very bitter. I gave everything I had, he said. In recent years, the World Cup leader’s jersey has been seen as an asset during the Olympics. Both in 2010 in Vancouver (Simon Ammann) and four years later in Sochi, and then in Pyongyang (Kamil Stoch), the leader reached for gold.

– I hope it will be better on the large hill. But it is difficult to judge, because none of the competitors jumped there before. It would have been a great disappointment for Stefan Horngacher if his jumpers had not won a medal there as well – points out Ries.

On Monday there will be a mixture on the normal hill. Qualification for the large hill competition on Friday, and individual competition on Saturday. Next Monday, February 14, the team competition on the large hill. Reports in Sport.pl.