Four ramparts competition - Kobajasi is the defending champion, but it would be a surprise if he succeeded in the feat

The Olympic champion Japanese competitor is not in top form, he has not been on the podium in any of the eight races of the World Cup series so far, and twice he did not even finish in the top thirty. At the same time, the 26-year-old ski jumper would catch up with Norway's Björn Wirkola, Germany's Helmut Recknagel and Poland's Kamil Stoch in third place in the all-time ranking with another, third triumph.

Among the favorites is former winner Dawid Kubacki from Poland, who leads the World Cup by winning half of the eight races so far, while finishing second twice. However, balance is the most important thing in the Four Walls Competition, and the Polish jumper is at the forefront of this in the current season. For this reason, his biggest challenger could be Anze Lanisek, also a six-time podium finisher, who won three races this season, but it is against the 26-year-old Slovenian that he has not yet won a single first place in the Four-Stage Championship.

The Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud and the Austrian Stefan Kraft can have a say in the duo's fight, because they still have a championship success this season, and both have enough experience. The former won the World Championship in 2021, and the latter was Olympic champion in a team and three-time world champion in an individual, and in 2015 he also won the Golden Eagle as the overall winner of the Quadruple Jump.

Based on the results, there is a prospect of a balanced, close competition, so it is unlikely that someone will triumph with a hundred percent performance. In the history of the Four Walls Competition, only three people were able to do this: the German Sven Hannawald (2001/02), Stoch (2017/18) and Kobajasi (2018/19).

The event, which also counts towards the World Cup points competition, starts on Thursday in Oberstdorf, Germany, and continues in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the first of January. The field will then move to Austria: on January 4, the competitors will jump in Innsbruck and two days later in Bischofshofen. The final winner will be enriched with 90,000 euros.

(Source: Source: sportrajongo.hu, mti/Photo: pixabay)