Karl Geiger Four Hills Tournament: These are the favorites of the 70th Four Hills Tournament – sports news about ice hockey, winter sports and more
Karl Geiger from Allgäu is one of the favorites of the Four Hills Tournament 2021/2022. Who are its main competitors? That’s what the ski jumping experts say.
For the 70th time this year there will be a winner at the Four Hills Tournament searched. The chance that after a long time a German ski jumper BECOMES overall champion is not bad at all. The biggest competitor could be a Japanese. A look at the favorites at the flight spectacle in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen.
Karl Geiger: Geiger knows the ski jumping facility on the Schattenberg, where the first competition of the tour traditionally takes place on Wednesday, like hardly any other active jumper. The 28-year-old comes from the winter sports stronghold in Allgäu and lives there too.
Geiger is the most constant jumper in the team of national coach Stefan Horngacher this year and competes as the overall World Cup leader. The calm and balanced athlete expected to prove his class again at the dress rehearsal in Engelberg shortly before Christmas, when he finished first and second. He is one of two top favorites. Also read: Portrait of the ski jumping star Karl Geiger: Everything that is important to the Allgäu Four Hills Tournament star
Ryoyu Kobayashi: The Japanese is the other. Kobayashi has already won the 2018/19 tour and won on all four hills at that time. The 25-year-old is again in very blatant shape this year and could not be disturbed by a quarantine.
Kobayashi had tested positive for the virus in Ruka, Finland, missed a competition there and had to sit out the entire World Cup weekend in Wisla, Poland. He then finished seventh, first, second and first. He is Geiger’s first pursuer.
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Halvor Egner Granerud: The Norwegian was the outstanding jumper of last winter’s World Cup. He won the overall World Cup with confidence, ahead of Markus Eisenbichler. This season, the 25-year-old has not been able to access his class that regularly, but he keeps flashing it.
Granerud won the opening weekend in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, and made it onto the podium two more times. Last winter he led the tour after the first two competitions, but then ended up only in 15th place and field back in Innsbruck. “I think he is quite itchy about what happened there last year,” said Norway coach Alexander Stoeckl. Granerud has “still one bill open” with the tour.
Kamil Stoch: The beneficiary of Granerud’s unexpectedly poor result at Bergisel was Stoch. The Pole won, took the lead and never gave it up. As the defending champion, who has already won the tour three times, the now 34-year-old is again one of the jumpers who cannot be written off. Although many things have not gone smoothly at Stoch this season, with his touring routine and fundamental class he can also annoy the top favorites.
Stefan Kraft: If you ask jumpers and coaches about favorites, the name Stefan Kraft comes up again and again. The Austrian won the tour in the 2014/15 season and has been one of the world’s best for years. “I really like the hills, the whole event,” said Kraft about the tour. “Others are top favorites, I think. But I’m already one of the candidates.”