Johann Forfang surprises in Lillehammer qualification
Mar 02, 2022·Ski Jumping
Norway's Johann Andre Forfang won Wednesday's qualification for the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Lillehammer (NOR). On the HS 140 hill, he came in ahead of the two Austrians Stefan Kraft and Manuel Fettner.
"I'm very surprised that I could win here today. But I also had good conditions and they changed then for the athletes at the end of the round", Forfang explained his surprising success. With this win today, Forfang now also leads the RAW AIR overall ranking, for which all the points scored in each of the qualification and competition rounds in Lillehammer and Oslo (Friday to Sunday) are added up.
Kamil Stoch, who won the most recent edition of the RAW AIR 2019/20 (it was canceled last winter due to Covid), finished in a strong fourth place. Constantin Schmid showed a great performance as well and was the best German in fifth this afternoon.
The top group with World Cup leader Ryoyu Kobayashi, Karl Geiger, and Halvor Egner Granerud was struggling with difficult wind conditions and so they came in only eighth (Granerud), 12th (Kobayashi), and 14 (Geiger).
After one of the nine jumps, Kobayashi is now exactly 12 points behind Forfang in the RAW AIR overall ranking. The winner of the Tour will get prize money of € 60,000.-.
Finland's Eetu Nousiainen and Gregor Deschwanden of Switzerland did very well today and came in 15th and 16th, Andreas Wellinger managed to qualify in 50th place, only the tiny margin of 0.1 points ahead of the 51st.
The competition in Lillehammer starts on Thursday at 4 pm CET.
