The color suits him.

Karl Geiger likes the yellow jersey.

In Finland he was allowed to keep it and put it on again.

The world champion ski jumper got it the previous week at the World Cup start in the Russian cold of Nizhny Tagil.

In Ruka, in the land of a thousand lakes, the virtuoso hill artist from Oberstdorf defended it.

Fifth place on Saturday, second place on Sunday.

Ralf Weitbrecht

Sports editor.

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Fair and appreciative, the 28-year-old Allgäu patted his friend and roommate Markus Eisenbichler on the helmet on Saturday after the competition in the freezing cold.

It was his Bavarian specie who made it onto the podium in third place after two jumps from the Finnish hill.

On Sunday, Geiger and Eisenbichler finished second and third in the Slovenian Anze Lanisek's first career win.

Geiger did not show his best jumps on Saturday in the freezing cold of minus 15 degrees.

But the great stylist, who knows like no other how to be focused and fixed on the point, was not dissatisfied with his performance in the far north. 

"Satisfied"

“Actually, I'm already satisfied.

I struggled a little with the jumps.

If I complain about fifth place, I don't know anymore.

I'm happy, ”said Geiger after jumping 132.5 and 129 meters on ZDF.

Eisenbichler was better than Geiger that day and after his two jumps on 136.5 and 132 meters only had to admit defeat to the resurgent Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi and the Slovenian Anze Lanisek.

"I'm really very happy," said Eisenbichler.

I didn't expect it would be long for the podium.

But I jumped up. ”The fact that Geiger was able to maintain his top position in the field of the 50 best athletes eligible to compete in the respective World Cup competitions was not only due to his stable form.

He also played into his cards that Halvor Egner Granerud, the best Norwegian of the past winter, had a debacle. The previous runner-up in the overall World Cup had a pitch-black day in qualification and had to be content with the role of the uninvolved spectator in 53rd place. And on Sunday Geiger had drawn the right conclusions from the previous day: “That was fun. The second jump was my best of the whole weekend, ”he said.

With 305 points he defended his lead in the overall World Cup ahead of Lanisek (252). While Granerud's performance hurt the Norwegian team around Austrian head coach Alexander Stöckl, Nippon's team was very happy.

Kobayashi is back.

The man who won the traditional Four Hills Tournament 2018/2019 as Grand Slam winner with four wins in all four individual competitions, but then fell into a performance gap, seems to be the perfect balance between jump, flight and landing in the sensitive outdoor sport of ski jumping to have found.

Wonderful jump

In the second round, Kobayashi built on his great times on Saturday with a wonderful jump of 143 meters.

Stefan Horngacher was impressed by the Japanese comeback, but turned the focus on his jumpers.

The national coach said in his analysis: “Markus made two good jumps, Karl has also improved.

We are very satisfied, we still made it to the podium. "

The Austrian, who lives in the Black Forest and is used to traveling from hill to hill as a ski jumping globetrotter from November to March far from home, sees his team - in addition to Geiger and Eisenbichler, Pius Paschke (7th) and Constantin Schmid also made it (13th) and Stephan Leyhe (25th) among the top 30 - on track.

For the ski jumpers, a top-class winter is on the program with three highlights: Four Hills Tournament in Oberstdorf, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, the Olympic Games in Beijing and ski flying-W