Mariusyak's flight achievements, Czech skier in a coma. Highlights from the ski week.

Ski Jumping

Starts of the Week:

Oberstdorf (Germany), HS 235, individual flight tournament

Sunday, January 26

Oberstdorf (Germany), HS 235, individual flight tournament

Marusyak Shines Again in Flight

The first flying stage of the season in Oberstdorf was eagerly awaited by Ukrainian ski jumping fans. The team leader, Yevhen Marusyak, has established himself as an excellent jumper on large hills, leading to well-founded hopes for good results from him. And these hopes were completely justified.

However, it all started off worryingly: in the first training session, the Ukrainian showed the last, 58th result. Yet Marusyak was quite unlucky with the weather conditions: during his jump, the wind shifted from headwind to tailwind – the worst situation that can occur for a jumper.

Overall, the stage in Oberstdorf took place under very challenging weather conditions: the wind was quite strong and changed direction sharply and radically. This is a very difficult situation for any jumping competition, especially for flights: jumps on large hills are most sensitive to wind.

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Returning to Marusyak, he managed to prove the randomness of his failure in the first jump: he achieved 40th place in the second training and 22nd in the qualification. In Saturday's main competition, everything was even better. After the first attempt, Yevhen jumped 215.5 meters with very good technique, placing 11th and having a chance to update his personal record in the World Cup, finishing in the top 10 for the first time. However, it was clear that even maintaining his position would be difficult. Too many strong competitors were right behind him: Stefan Kraft, Michael Hayböck, Gregor Deschwanden, Jan Hörl, Karl Geiger.

Marusyak's second attempt was very decent, but he ultimately lost 5 positions. Nevertheless, 16th place is an excellent result for Yevhen. He has only finished higher than that three times in his World Cup career.

Sunday for the Ukrainian began much like Friday: with the need to jump in very challenging weather conditions. During the qualification jump, Yevhen faced a strong tailwind and managed to qualify for the main competition not without issues: he finished 36th out of 40 qualifying spots. Recall that in flight competitions, unlike World Cup stages on regular 120-meter hills, only the top 40, not 50, qualify.

In the main competition, Marusyak no longer had to contend with such unfavorable wind, and he confidently made it into the scoring zone, ultimately finishing 22nd. Another very solid performance from the leader of Ukraine's team on the giant hill.

Yevhen once again confirmed his reputation as a prominent flyer. The statistics are more than telling: Marusyak has participated in the main competitions on giant hills in the World Cup 8 times and has qualified for the scoring zone each time – a 100% success rate. In contrast, on 120-meter hills, Yevhen has only finished in the top 30 4 times out of 26 starts, and on 90-meter hills – once out of 4 starts.

At the dawn of his World Cup career, the Ukrainian did not qualify in his first two starts on giant hills, but after a breakthrough Sunday start in Bad Mitterndorf at the end of January 2023, he has finished in the top 30 in all 8 of his starts. If we also consider last year's flight World Championship in the same Bad Mitterndorf, we get a series of 9 consecutive top 30 finishes.

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At the same time, there remains the complete impression that Marusyak has not fully unlocked his potential. This impression arises, first and foremost, when observing Yevhen's speeds at the top of the take-off – he significantly lags behind his competitors in this aspect. For example, in the first attempt of Saturday's tournament (11th place), Yevhen started from the 23rd position at the take-off and reached a speed of 101.7 km/h. Maximilian Ortner, who started just before the Ukrainian (10th place), began from the 21st position, received +8.5 compensation points for this, and still achieved a significantly higher speed – 102.4 km/h.

The reason for Marusyak's speed issues at the take-off – is it technique or ski waxing? It seems to be a combination of both factors. Another Ukrainian, Vitaliy Kalinychenko, also occasionally faces speed issues at the take-off, so there are certainly questions regarding service work. Regardless, the limiting factor preventing Marusyak from competing for higher places is evident. Identifying the problem is already the first step towards its resolution.

As for Kalinychenko, he returned to the World Cup after missing the stage in Zakopane. Vitaliy usually performs well on giant hills, but this time he failed to qualify twice, finishing 52nd both times.

Slovenia's Benefit in Flights

As expected, the first flight stage of the season significantly shook up the power dynamics at the top of the World Cup standings in ski jumping. A week ago, we wrote that in the first half of the season, victories were secured only by representatives of two teams – Austria and Germany. However, in Oberstdorf, they only managed to secure one podium across two individual starts.

As is often the case on giant hills, the representatives of Slovenia and Norway came to the forefront. In Oberstdorf, the Slovenians were the stronger competitors, taking victories in both individual starts. Timi Zajc won the Saturday tournament, where the Heini Klopfer hill is his favorite: it is here that he has secured 4 of his 5 World Cup victories – a remarkable statistic for the Slovenian, considering that Oberstdorf will host the flight World Championship in just a year. At the same time, Timi once again exhibited his instability, finishing only 12th on Sunday without any objective reasons for such a failure.

Domen Prevc completed the top 3 on Saturday and won on Sunday. Despite being considered a prominent flyer, this Sunday’s victory was only the second of his career on giant hills – a fact that is hard to believe.

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Two victories, a double podium on Saturday – the stage in Oberstdorf can be called a Slovenian benefit. However, excluding Zajc and Prevc, the weekend was not so successful for Robert Hrgot's team. Rok Oblak failed to qualify twice and seems unlikely to remain in the team for long. Anže Lanišek and Lovro Kos finished in 8th and 23rd places respectively on Saturday, and both received disqualifications in the first attempt on Sunday. Notably, while Lanišek showed the 11th result, Kos did not contend for high positions. Anže's disqualification on Sunday means he has left the competition without points in an individual start for the first time this season.

Johan Andre Forfang became Slovenia's main competitor, finishing second twice. A very strong weekend for the Norwegian; however, at the same time, he also contends for the title of one of the main losers of the stage. The issue is that on the Heini Klopfer hill, he faced significant landing problems while executing extremely long jumps.

It all began on Friday. Forfang flew 236 meters in the qualification while no one except Michael Hayböck jumped further than 225 meters. However, the Norwegian failed to land. This was not even a "pot"; Johan slid on the snow with the lower part of his back and consequently received low style scores. Nevertheless, the impressive distance was enough for him to win the qualification with a 0.1 point advantage over Domen Prevc.

The situation repeated itself in the Saturday individual tournament. Forfang flew 235 meters in the second attempt but landed poorly again. There was no body contact with the snow cover this time, but the "pot" was very deep, resulting in scores of 15.5 and 16 points. Overall, in the second attempt, the Norwegian lost 8.5 points to Zajc and ultimately trailed the winner by 5.1 points: it was his unsuccessful landing in the second attempt that cost Johan the victory.

On Sunday, the head coach of the Norwegian team, Magnus Breivik, took into account Forfang's landing problems and changed tactics, inviting a lowered starting bench for his protégé in both attempts. However, this tactic did not work: in the first attempt, Johan from the lowered bench did not cover the necessary 95% of the hill's power (he had to fly at least 223 meters) and did not receive 4.2 points in compensation for the shortened take-off. Ultimately, Forfang finished second again, losing to Domen Prevc by 3.6 points.

Johan had an excellent weekend, could have won both individual starts, but ultimately did not win any. On