Eleven centimeters.

A touch of nothing.

Especially when it comes to ski jumping.

About the art of flying.

About the dream of finally winning the Four Hills Tournament again after an eternally long waiting period of 20 years.

No German has succeeded in this since Sven Hannawald's Grand Slam coup.

Karl Geiger was the man who was most likely to be trusted to defeat the great dominator Ryoyu Kobayashi on the currently ongoing 70th anniversary tour.

A goal that since New Year's Day has seemingly moved into the distance.

Ralf Weitbrecht

Sports editor.

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The man from Oberstdorf only finished seventh on the Great Olympic Hill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen - 26.2 points behind the once again triumphant Japanese. Converted after the first two tour competitions, Geiger has already had to catch up to almost 18 meters. "For me the thing was over in terms of the overall standings - a wild bird competition has to happen now," said the frustrated violinist on New Year's Day. "If everything goes normally, I can no longer manage it." Perhaps for room neighbors and team mate Markus Eisenbichler?

It was the emotional jumper Eisenbichler who got off to a splendid start to the new year and finished second with the tiny size of just eleven centimeters behind Kobayashi and two jumps on 141 and 143.5 meters.

Even on the day after, when the German entourage made their way to the next tour location Innsbruck, Stefan Horngacher was still full of praise for his most recently struggling record world champion.

“That was another Eisenbichler shell jump,” said the national coach, who was happy about a “strong team performance”.

Stephan Leyhe was tenth in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Constantin Schmid (20th), Andreas Wellinger (22nd) and Severin Freund (28th) were among the top 30, only Pius Paschke (31st) missed the second round of the competition.

At the halfway point of the stressful tour with its travel strains and different approaches to four completely different jumps, Horngacher drew a "very positive" interim conclusion. Even if Geiger should really no longer have it in his hand to catch up with Kobayashi, who is now again leading in the overall World Cup. "In principle, Karl is right," said Horngacher in the Garmisch team hotel. "Normally it is an impossibility."

On New Year's Day, the weather played a nasty trick on Geiger. The Oberstdorf resident twice went into the inrun, twice the conditions were adverse. The result: jumps to "only" 130 and 127.5 meters. Seventh place, pure frustration. "It really sucks," said Geiger, choosing words for his anger that would otherwise not come so clearly out of his lips. The 28-year-old thought it was "bitter when you get gossip like that".

Fourth, sixth, eighth: like a string of pearls, Eisenbichler, Geiger and Leyhe are currently in the overall ranking.

Eisenbichler is 21.1 points, the equivalent of 11.72 meters, behind high-flyer Kobayashi.

As expected, the strong Norwegian Marius Lindvik and the Slovenian surprise jumper Lovro Kos positioned themselves in front of Bayern.

"That's really awesome," said Eisenbichler after his coup on the Gudiberg.

It is hard to imagine if the six-time world champion would have managed to set a telemark on his 143-meter jump.

But he couldn't do that.