Halvor Egner Granerud claims victory at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, celebrates like Haaland
The Norwegian made it two out of two in the 2022/23 Four Hills Tournament ahead of Anze Lanisek with World Cup leader Dawid Kubacki third.
Ski Jumping
Halvor Egner Granerud secured his 16th ski jumping World Cup victory in the traditional New Year's Day event at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
The Norwegian was in superb form on Sunday (1 January), taking a narrow lead after round one of the final from Slovenia's Anze Lanisek.
The pressure was on Granerud after Lanisek put in an improved second jump, but Granerud pulled out a leap of 142.0m - the biggest of the day - to back up his win in Thursday's Four Hills opener at Oberstdorf.
And he celebrated his first Garmisch win by pretending to meditate like his compatriot, footballing sensation Erling Haaland.
Afterwards, he explained to FIS, "Two years ago, I was in really good shape here in Garmisch and I thought I'd make a celebration like Haaland in honour of him - because he was kind of the king in Germany at the time. But Dawid (Kubacki) took the hill record in the final round and I came second. So I've been waiting for a moment to do that celebration since."
He added, "It's been an amazing start to the New Year. Three good jumps: the first one in the trial round was insane and the two in the competition were really really good as well."
Granerud's winning total of 303.7 saw him take victory by 6.4 points from Lanisek.
World Cup leader Dawid Kubacki (294.4) was third after taking top spot in qualification on Saturday with Austria's Manuel Fettner (279.6) some way adrift in fourth.
Three-time Olympic champion Kamil Stoch was ninth with Kobayashi Ryoyu, the reigning Garmisch and Four Hills champion, only 19th.
Home favourite Markus Eisenbichler and Peter Prevc were the big name casualties in the first round while Beijing Olympic large hill champion Marius Lindvik was disqualified for a suit size infringement.
Granerud leads the Four Hills Tournament from Kubacki with another Pole, Piotr Zyla, in third place after his sixth in Garmisch.
Kubacki's lead over Lanisek in the World Cup standings is down to 88 points with Granerud in third place a further 66 points behind.
The athletes now go to Innsbruck for the third event of the Four Hills with qualifying on Tuesday and the competition proper on Wednesday.
Men's Ski Jumping Garmisch-Partenkirchen – results (top 10):
- Halvor Egner Granerud (NOR) 303.7
- Anze Lanisek (SLO) 297.3
- Dawid Kubacki (POL) 294.4
- Manuel Fettner (AUT) 279.6
- Jan Hoerl (AUT) 278.9
- Piotr Zyla (POL) 277.0
- Daniel Tschofenig (AUT) 275.4
- Andreas Wellinger (GER) 273.1
- Kamil Stoch (POL) 272.7
- Michael Hayboeck (AUT) 269.8