Four Hills Innsbruck qualifying: Dawid Kubacki on form again as he wins from Anze Lanisek, Karl Geiger out

Dawid Kubacki was on form again as he won in the Four Hills Innsbruck qualifying from Anze Lanisek, with Karl Geiger surprisingly going out.

Kubacki, second in the Four Hills standings after two events, launched himself 128 metres to decimate the opposition, with only Lanisek in close proximity.

Even Halvor Egner Granerud – winner of the first two Four Hills events – couldn’t better Kubacki, qualifying down in 13th.

On an overcast day in Innsbruck, 60 starters took to the ramp at the Bergisel, with qualification for the main event the prize.

It has been a season so far dominated by Granerud, who won in Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, with Innsbruck the third event and the final one scheduled for Bischofshofen on January 5-6.

But Tuesday afternoon was all about the race to make it through, and it was Anders Fannemel of Norway who held the lead after 10 jumpers.

That lead went to Vilho Palosaari of Finland after a third of the jumps had been completed, but Germany’s Philipp Raimund landed an impressive distance to go top at the halfway stage with 107.4 points.

Second in the standings at that stage – jointly with Ziga Jelar and Palosaari – was his German team-mate Stephan Leyhe.

Conditions were overall good in the early stages, and Slovenia’s Peter Prevc made full use of that as he went into the lead next with a fine jump of 121 metres that saw him go into bonus point territory, and a resulting score of 112 points.

Prevc didn’t last long at the top of the standings however as Johann Andre Forfang of Norway was next to jump, and registered a distance of 122 metres and an overall score of 113.6 points.

More impressive distances were to come however, with Poland’s Kamil Stoch landing his skis four metres further than Forfang at 126 metres, and taking the lead with just ten jumpers left to descend the ramp.

Next was a shock as Karl Geiger – sixth-last to go – put in a poor jump as the 2021 Ski Flying World Championships gold medallist found himself out of the qualification places.

All of a sudden the conditions and light rain were proving difficult and even Granerud could only get himself into 11th at the time with his jump.

Just two men remained, Anze Lanisek and David Kubacki, and they took the top two places, with Kubacki the winner with a huge 128-metre jump – 14 metres ahead of Granerud – and 126.8 points.

Kubacki, talking to Eurosport, said afterwards: “I expect from myself to do a really good jumps [tomorrow].

“In this qualification I found out the solution for my jumps to be better and I’m really glad that it worked.

“We had not that easy conditions especially when it started raining, but the hill is prepared perfectly.

“I’m just looking forward to tomorrow with a lot of emotion on the hill and smiles on my face.”

Geiger said of his difficult day: “It’s quite a tough situation. I haven’t expected this. It was not a good jump.

“I have no answer [for the poor jump]. It should not be possible that this happened, but it happened and that’s it.”

On Wednesday, the first-round Large Hill KO will see Granerud face Francesco Cecon and Kubacki take on Stefan Hula, the latter an all-Polish clash.

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