Two favorites have emerged since the dress rehearsal in Engelberg, but only one of them can really win the Four Hills Tournament.
Werner Schuster, the long-time national ski jumping coach, is confident that the German jumpers can finally end the twenty years of waiting after Sven Hannawald's Grand Slam success.
"The awareness is there, the hunger is there, the work is done well and we are not far from it," said the 52-year-old Austrian on Tuesday in a media panel organized by Eurosport.
"I wish it for this generation, and I think the chances are pretty good this year in particular," said Schuster, who works as a TV expert for the station.
Like so many other experts and connoisseurs of ski jumping, shoemakers Karl Geiger and Ryoyu Kobayashi also see the fight for the tournament crown ahead.
The Oberstdorf violinist, like the Japanese Kobayashi, had left Engelberg with a first and a second place after the last two World Cup competitions before the prestigious Four Hills Tournament.
Schuster compared the seemingly eternal wait for an overall German winner to the situation at Liverpool FC, which even had to wait three decades for the title before winning the English championship in the Premier League.
"Sometimes there are constellations that you just have to accept," said Schuster, who looked after the German team from 2008 to 2019, and confirmed: "You need a high-flyer to win the tour."