The 2020/2021 FIS Ski Jumping World Cup was the 42nd World Cup season in ski jumping and the 24th official World Cup season in ski flying. An equally successful and challenging season 2020/2021 ended in Planica with 4 Ski Flying competitions from 25.3 – 28.3.2021. Ski Jumping World Cup final is traditionally held in Planica each season with three ski flying competitions (two individual and one team). This season an individual competition was added to the final’s schedule, replacing a competition which should be held in Vikersund.
The first day of the final competition weekend in Planica was overshadowed by the very serious crash of Norway’s Daniel Andre Tande in the trial round. The former Ski Flying World Champion Tande lost control right after take-off, crashed on the knoll after about 99 m and slid down the hill unconsciously. After being taken to Ljubljana University Clinical Centreby helicopter, his condition is stable.
Thursday’s competition was won by Ryoyu Kobayashi from Japan. For Kobayashi, this was his 19th World Cup win and the third this winter.
Results:
- Ryoyu Kobayashi (JPN) – 452,5 points
- Markus Eisenbichler (GER) – 445,1 points
- Karl Geiger (GER) – 431,3 points
Difficult conditions on Friday in Planica led to long interruptions due to which the competition consisted of only one round. But still, it was extremely exciting and Karl Geiger of Germany was the well-deserved winner in the end.
Results:
- Karl Geiger (GER) – 237,3 points
- Ryoyu Kobayashi (JPN) – 227,7 points
- Bor Pavlovcic (SLO) – 225,2 points
This season’s final team competition on the Ski Flying hill became a victim of the wind on Saturday. After various short and one longer interruption due to the wind conditions, the jury decided to cancel Saturday’s competition. The competition was rescheduled to Sunday as a one round only, right before the individual competition.
Final competition day of the 2020/21 Ski Jumping World Cup started with the rescheduled team competition. The best jumps were shown by team Germany (Paschke, Schmid, Eisenbichler, Geiger) who won the final team competition of the season.
Results:
- Germany (Paschke, Schmid, Eisenbichler, Geiger) – 819,5 points
- Japan (Nakamura, J. Kobayashi, Sato, R. Kobayashi) – 810 points
- Austria (Huber, Schiffner, Kraft, Hayboeck) – 788,9 points
Sunday then continued and ended with the last individual competition of the season. German Karl Geiger took the win with jumps of 231 and 232,5 meters. With another win over the weekend, Geiger also became the winner of Planica 7 tournament.
“Planica is my favorite Ski Flying hill, I really like it here. I’m very happy that it works that well for me and that I can fight for the podium”, said Geiger, who won the Ski Flying World Championship title in Planica last December.
Results:
- Karl Geiger (GER) – 459,3 points
- Ryoyu Kobayashi (JPN) – 452,4 points
- Markus Eisenbichler (GER) – 447,9 points
Overall winner of the World Cup 2020/2021 season and the recipient of the Crystal globe is Halvor Egner Granerud of Norway with 1572 points. Second place in the Standings went to German Markus Eisenbichler with 1190 points, third was Kamil Stoch of Poland with 955 points. And with no surprise, this season’s Ski Flying Crystal globe went to Karl Geiger.
”It’s been an amazing year and I knew that I would get the crystal globe here in Planica. I’m quite glad that it was secure before we came here, because the weekend had been pretty tough with the situation with Daniel and my jumping. In the last three weeks I didn’t have a chance to train as much as I wanted to., that’s why the jumping was a bit unstable, it was very good or very bad, nothing in between. But the feeling of lifting the crystal globe and hearing the national anthem was amazing. I got a chance to speak to my father and girlfriend during one of the interviews and that was really special.” – Halvor Egner Granerud
