Andreas Wellinger from Germany won the Ski Jumping World Cup in Rasnov (ROU) on Saturday evening. The man from Bavaria won on the HS 97 metres normal hill in Rasnov in a blink of an eye ahead of the Slovenian Ziga Jelar and Karl Geiger (GER). Five German starters finished among the top six.
In the end it was the expected strong performance of the German team. In the absence of many top athletes (preparation for the Nordic World Ski Championships starting next week), five German athletes finished among the top six. However, the Slovenian Ziga Jelar missed the victory by a hair’s breadth: Wellinger (240.4 to 240.2) was 0.2 points ahead of Jelar in the final ranking.
“That was a great competition today, I am in really good shape. Today was with conviction and confidence. To be on top of the podium feels incredibly awesome. And then Karl on the podium too, tonight we’ll have a beer, but tomorrow we’ll be absolutely focused again. And then we will go to Planica next week, where we will continue to work just as concentrated”, Andreas Wellinger was happy about his success.
Ziga Jelar, who was narrowly beaten, said: “I am really satisfied because my jumps are on a really high level at the moment. Maybe the results in the last competitions didn’t show that, but I know that I was also very good in the last competitions. I think that’s just the result when everything comes together, and that’s just before the World Championships. Andi is in a very, very good shape. He has also shown that in the last weeks. I am happy to be near him and we will have a tough fight at the World Championships.
For sure, I also travelled to Romania because I wanted to stay in the competition rhythm. I think I made the right decision”.
Both Wellinger and Jelar are among the top favourites for the World Championships in Planica.
Karl Geiger benefited from the fact that his buddy Markus Eisenbichler did not manage an ideal final jump after leading at half-time. Eisenbichler slipped from 1st to 4th place and Geiger made it to the podium.
All in all, an outstanding team result for the German ski jumpers: Behind Eissenbichler, Philipp Raimund and Constantin Schmid came in 5th and 6th.
Behind them the Swiss Dominik Peter achieved his best World Cup result by far (7.), the same for the Italian Alex Insam on 9th place and the young Austrian Jonas Schuster who could achieve an outstanding 10th place in his first World Cup ever: “That was really cool, I jumped really well and am extremely happy. I was able to learn a lot from the good jumpers today, that was just really cool”, the son of ex-DSV national coach Werner Schuster was happy about his coup.
On Sunday there will be a super team competition in Rasnov (two athletes per team, three rounds). Start is at 16:10 hrs.
