(Reuters) – Poland’s Kamil Stoch is on course to retain his Four Hills title after overcoming Richard Freitag for the second leg in a row to triumph at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany on Monday.
Stoch, who won the opening event of the prestigious tournament at Oberstdorf on Saturday, topped the first round after recording 137.4 points and made a massive leap of 139.5 meters in the second to win with a total of 283.4 points.
Home favorite Freitag, winner of three World Cup events this season, finished second with 275.8 points after jumping 132 meters on his first attempt and taking the lead temporarily in the final round with 137 meters before Stoch surpassed him.
Stoch, a double gold medalist at the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014, won the Four Hills tournament last year after finishing second in the first two events and winning the final leg.
Norway’s Anders Fannemel rounded out the podium with a total of 270.2 points to edge Japan’s Junshiro Kobayashi by a point.
Freitag holds top spot on the World Cup leaderboard with a total of 710 points, with Stoch moving into second position on 523 and another German, Andreas Wellinger, third with 449.
(Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
