Dawid Kubacki holds off Halvor Egner Granerud to win at Innsbruck and keep Four Hills alive going to Bischofshofen

Dawid Kubacki won in Innsbruck on Wednesday to end Halvor Egner Granerud’s Grand Slam dreams, but the Norwegian still is in pole position to win Four Hills going into the final event in Bischofshofen.

Kubacki was dominant in the qualifying session on Tuesday and he led the way in the first jump, scoring a whopping 137.4 points.

Granerud, who had won both events in Germany, struggled in his first jump, finishing sixth overall.

But the Norwegian produced a brilliant response, going for a distance of 133.0m and a second round score of 137.1, by some distance the highest score of the round.

It put the pressure on Kubacki but he did well to hold off his opponent and his jump did enough to give him a total score of 265.2, just ahead of Granerud’s 261.7.

Whilst Kubacki will be pleased with the way he jumped he will be disappointed not to have taken a bigger chunk out of Granerud’s lead, which stands at 23.3 points, roughly 12m.

The big jump at Bischofshofen will give the chance for gains to be made but Granerud remains in the driving seat.

Elsewhere Slovakia’s Anze Lanisek continued his good bounce back to take the final spot on the podium whilst Kamil Stoch’s resurgence continued with a fifth-placed finish.

Speaking afterwards Kubacki said: “Yeah it’s a really nice day for me. It was great jumps, I’m really glad for what I’ve done on the hill. Of course the second round should have been better because I know I made some small mistakes but still I landed on first place so that’s really nice. So I will just work on this point until the next competition.

“I’m not thinking about it [the overall title], of course it’s possible because it’s sport, everything is possible until the last jump. Of course Halvor has some points haead that’s his advantage but I will fight until the end and in Bischofshofen after last jumper we will see who was better.”

There was some controversy during the second jump when the gates were changed after Granerud’s jump.

After Stoch’s jump on co-commentary Jernej Damjan pointed out that it was a poor decision.

“No Kamil.” He said after the jump.

David Goldstrom on commentary agreed saying “I find it hard to justify that reduction of the gate.”

Damjan added “No I think it was completely unnecessary. We want to see the difference of the best and the rest.”

Analysing the event for Eurosport, Martin Schmitt remarked: “Another amazing competition at the Four Hills. Dawid Kubacki is the winner here in Innsbruck and he completely deserved the victory for the day.

“He had a fantastic first competition round, in the second round at the start of his take-off motion he lost a bit of his balance and later on he lost some metres.

“He struggled a bit in the first round, he had to jump in really difficult conditions and lost a lot of points but showed an amazing jump in the second round with a nice telemark at 133m and he keeps all the chances for the overall title, he has a big lead so he’s the big favourite and with this mental strength we saw in the second round I think nobody can beat him.”

In the end Kubacki was able to get past Granerud, but all eyes will turn to Bischofshofen to see if he can overtake him in the overall standings.

In the World Cup standings Kubacki leads Lanisek by 128 points, with Granerud a further 46 points behind.

– –