Japan’s Ryōyū Kobayashi won the biggest annual event in men’s ski jumping -- the Four Hills Tournament -- and will now look to follow it with his first Olympic medals.
Kobayashi, 25, won three of the four legs of the tournament held in Germany and Austria for his second title, three years after sweeping all four legs. No Americans qualified for any of the finals to register points.
Kobayashi, who was seventh and 10th individually at the 2018 Olympics, could deliver Japan its first Olympic ski jumping gold since Kazuyoshi Funaki took individual gold and anchored the men’s team to gold in Nagano in 1998.
Kobayashi supplanted German Karl Geiger as the World Cup leader during Four Hills, counting points from competitions all season.
Geiger, 28, was the lone man to earn a medal in both individual events at last season’s world championships (silver and bronze). Poland’s Piotr Żyła and Austrian Stefan Kraft won the normal and large hills at worlds.
Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud, last year’s World Cup season champion, is third in this season’s standings behind Kobayashi and Geiger.
Poland’s Kamil Stoch, who won three of the four individual Olympic events between 2014 and 2018, has one World Cup podium this season, a third place on Dec. 11.
Swiss Simon Ammann, who swept the individual Olympic golds in 2002 and 2010 and is now 40 years old, has a best World Cup finish this season of 13th.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
