Andreas Wellinger's face was glowing with joy in the bitterly cold polar landscape, even Karl Geiger was satisfied despite a late setback: The DSV-Adler reported back in the World Cup with four top ten places in the turbulent trip to Finland.

Despite the worst start to the season in twelve years, there is optimism in the German team a month before the Four Hills Tournament.

"We have improved significantly here and are on the right track, even if there is still a lot to do," said national coach Stefan Horngacher after two-time Olympic champion Wellinger in seventh, Pius Paschke (8th) and Markus Eisenbichler (10th) ensured a good finish in Ruka's second competition.

Far from the very best

Even if the German eagles still cannot keep up with the very best pilots - on Saturday the Slovenian Anze Lanisek won, on Sunday there were two winners with the same number of points in Austria's world champion Stefan Kraft and the Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud - and the gap to the podium was large in each case: Compared to the gray start on mats in Wisla, Poland three weeks earlier, the German aces were recognizable.

"It's definitely easier to fly that way," said Wellinger, who is becoming increasingly stable after major injury problems.

He and the rest of the team didn't let the bumpy preparations throw them off their stride either – because the German luggage, including the jumping skis, had only arrived in Finland on Friday evening, the DSV-Adler had to do a cold start.

Geiger continues to search for his form

After the first round, Geiger waved both hands and shook his head angrily: The top German ski jumper is still looking for his form after the second World Cup weekend of the winter.

After a jump of just 122.5 meters, the man from Oberstdorf, who is actually known for his consistency, was already over after the first round in Ruka, Finland, covered in deep snow on Sunday.

For the second time in the fourth competition of the season, the 29-year-old has not received any World Cup points.

Of course, Geiger hasn't forgotten how to ski jump at a very high level - he also showed that in the far north.

On Saturday he finished sixth.

In qualifying early Sunday morning, he flew 148 meters.

Only Granerud jumped further and set a hill record with his brilliant jump of 150.5 meters.

"Cool jump" in the qualification

“The qualifying jump was extremely cool.

That was great fun," said Geiger.

“Unfortunately, I wasn't able to confirm that in the competition.

Of course that's annoying.” The problem with Geiger is the large fluctuations in performance so far in the young season.

His placings so far: 34, 17, 6, 33. The Olympic bronze medalist in the large hill individual in Beijing lags far behind his own claims.

Despite the largely unsatisfactory competition results, the man from the Allgäu emphasized the positive experiences of the weekend.

"It's going in the right direction.

I've already had a few individual jumps that have worked really well.

There's still a bit to go before this is constantly available.

But it's a good sign that they're coming."

Nevertheless - no podium place in the first four individual competitions of the season: The German ski jumpers had last experienced that in 2010/11, when Severin Freund only made it onto the podium in the 14th competition - as the winner in Sapporo - after the turn of the year.

It is rather unlikely that the winter of 2022/23 will be as tough as it was then.

Or as Eisenbichler put it on Sunday: "I know what's inside me – it just doesn't come out yet."