Ryoyu Kobayashi outstanding on day 3 in Willingen
Feb 17, 2019·Ski Jumping
Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan was the outstanding athlete on the third day of the Ski Jumping festival in Willingen. With the longest jumps in both rounds, Kobayashi came in ahead of Markus Eisenbichler and Poland's Piotr Zyla.
It was a great weekend with a total of 56 800 spectators at the Muehlenkopf-hill in Willingen 2019. Markus Eisenbichler provided the highlight for the German hosts today when he could move up from eighth after the first round to second overall.
But there was no doubt that Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi was the "Man of the Day". His win was never in jeopardy with a lead of 21.6 points over the second-placed athlete. With this win today, Kobayashi also claimed the overall win of the Willingen 5 and an extra prize money of € 25 000,-. It was the eleventh World Cup win for 22-year-old Ryoyu Kobayashi, who took all these wins this season. "The wind conditions were very difficult today, but the fans cheered me on and so maybe they made some headwind for me. I don't think that much about the record of 15 wins in one season. I won here in Willingen and I'm in a good shape so obviously, I'm among the favorites for the World Championships, maybe I feel a little bit of pressure, but I just want to continue showing my best jumps", the "Man of the Winter" said after the competition.
Markus Eisenbichler said after his great performance in the final: "It was great to see Karl win here yesterday, and my second place today was a positive ending of the weekend. Yesterday I could not qualify for the final round, but this happens sometimes. Today it worked out really well for me and so it was a good weekend, also because of our second place in the team competition. I like to jump at home, it always pushes me to see the flags. I'm really looking forward to the World Championships, we have a very good team right now."
The teams of Germany and Poland showed very strong performances today.
Besides Eisenbichler, also Richard Freitag and Karl Geiger achieved top results in fourth and sixth, Andreas Wellinger was 19th, Constantin Schmid and Stephan Leyhe came in 21st and 22nd.
For Poland, not only Piotr Zyla was among the best. Dawid Kubacki and Kamil Stoch finished fifth and seventh, Jakub Wolny was 16th. "It was a really good weekend for me, my jumps were on a high level. They could still be a little bit better, but I'm happy about this weekend. I'm not thinking about the World Championships yet, there's still a lot of work to do before it", said Piotr Zyla.
It was not a good day for the hosts of the upcoming WSC: Best Austrian was Stefan Kraft in tenth, Daniel Huber was 12th. It was an especially disappointing day for Gregor Schlierenzauer, who was disqualified before his first jump because his suit was not compliant to the rules.
Ryoyu Kobayashi can almost celebrate the 2018/19 overall World Cup title already. With only six individual competition left this season, the 22-year-old, who scored 1620 points so far, has a clear lead over Kamil Stoch (1145 points) and Stefan Kraft (1017 points).
Next week the first two men's competitions of the Nordic World Ski Championships in Seefeld are held on the large hill in Innsbruck, where the third event of the 4-Hills-Tournament is held every year.
