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The great feelings of happiness did not materialize this time: Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler could not quite build on their strong performances at the beginning of the Four Hills Tournament in the New Year's event.

Geiger still finished fifth as the best German on Friday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Eisenbichler fell back to seventh after fourth in the first round.

Victory at the traditional event was secured by Pole Dawid Kubacki, who set a hill record with a fabulous flight at 144 meters.

Halvor Egner Granerud came in second.

The Norwegian is now just ahead of Geiger in the overall standings.

Third place went to Piotr Zyla from Poland.

"The first jump was a bit late," said Geiger self-critically on ARD.

"But overall, I'm satisfied, I didn't think it would go that far."

Disappointment after the first jump

He was also happy with his second jump.

The jump to 138 meters catapulted the Allgäu clearly forward after 14th place in the first attempt.

The ski flying world champion, who has already mastered numerous difficulties this season, did not let the negative experience bother him this time either.

After jumping 131 meters, he shook his head in disappointment.

"He didn't get good conditions," said national coach Stefan Horngacher.

"Now we have to see that we can catch up in the second." Geiger succeeded impressively.

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At Eisenbichler it was the other way around.

"Yes", he had shouted jubilantly after his first jump in front of snowy mountains.

After his second attempt at 134 meters, the great euphoria on the Great Olympic Hill was gone in sunny winter weather.

Germans can continue to hope

Despite the not quite optimal start to the year 2021, the hopes of the German fans for the first tour victory since Sven Hannawald 19 years ago are absolutely intact.

Friends Geiger and Eisenbichler, who is fifth overall, are both still in the race.

The 69th edition of the Schanzen spectacle in four acts is extremely tight.

Going it alone at the top like Ryoyu Kobayashi 2018/19 or Kamil Stoch a year earlier is not in sight, even if the Norwegian Granerud made it clear with consistently strong jumps on the Great Olympic Hill why he was the top favorite in the tour.

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The 24-year-old won five of the first seven individual World Cups and is not really showing any weakness this winter.

He was not worse than fourth place in 2020/21.

The passionate runner and hobby filmmaker also occupied this place in Oberstdorf.

Dawid Kubacki celebrates his victory in the New Year's competition

Source: AFP / CHRISTOF STACHE

Unlike Granerud, another Norwegian co-favorite had already had to say goodbye to the race for the golden eagle on New Year's Eve: Marius Lindvik, who finished third in Oberstdorf last Tuesday, could not compete in Garmisch due to severe toothache and falls after a jaw operation also in Innsbruck.

In addition to Eisenbichler and Geiger, Martin Hamann in eleventh, Pius Paschke in 16th and Richard Freitag in 27th place also scored World Cup points from the German team.

Severin Freund, on the other hand, dropped out after the first attempt after jumping 123 meters.

For Moritz Baer, ​​Constantin Schmid and David Siegel, the competition was over early.