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Local hope Daniel Huber was the surprise winner on Thursday
after landing jumps of 136.5m and 137m as he claimed his first
Four Hills and World Cup win with a score of 286.8.
Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud (282.4) finished second while
Germany's Karl Geiger was third (281.9).
"Many years of hard work went into this, sometimes I even
doubted myself," Huber said. "Today was an incredible day...
It's very emotional to take the first World Cup win at home."
Having won the first three legs of the competition, Kobayashi
was on course to repeat his 2018-19 sweep and become the first
man to win all four events on two occasions but a below-par
performance saw him finish with 277.8 points.
"I'm extremely happy, but also a bit exhausted," Kobayashi said
after taking the overall title ahead of Norwegians Marius
Lindvik and Granerud. "I'm very happy that I was able to show
consistent jumps during the entire tournament.
"It's a bit sad that I could not win the Grand Slam, but I'm
happy that I could win the golden eagle. I would not have
expected that I can win this overall title for the second time."
Kobayashi's Four Hills triumph consolidated his place at the top
of the World Cup standings and the 25-year-old's dominant
performances mark him out as a top medal contender at the Feb.
4-20 Beijing Winter Olympics.
(Reporting by Hritika Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter
Rutherford)
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