2020 Ski Jumping World Cup Betting Odds: Kobayashi’s Dominance Continues

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Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi is the reigning champion. And in the 2020 ski jumping world cup betting odds, he is still the biggest favorite to win the title. After 11 races, he is leading the overall standing, ahead of his main challengers,  German Karl Geiger and Austrian Stefan Kraft. But he doesn’t seem unbeatable this season, let’s see his and the others’ chances. 

Kobayashi has won the world cup last season with a huge dominance, winning 13 World Cup events and all six possible titles in the World Cup season. He is the first Non-European overall World Cup winner, ending Europe’s supremacy. As a top favorite, his odds are 1.80 with Unibet to win the tournament again. In 2019/20, he already has three victories, but there are still lots of races in the season. Besides the familiar rivals, new talents have appeared as well hungry for glory.   

2020 Ski jumping world cup betting odds: Can Kobayashi repeat his amazing season?

The Japanese phenomenon, Ryoyu Kobayashi is only 22 years old, his breakthrough came in the last season. In his previous results, we can only find a 42nd and a 24th finish in the overall standing. He hasn’t performed especially well on the Olympics in Pyeongchang, finished 7th in normal hill and 6th in the team event. But in the 2018/19 season, he was unstoppable in the World Cup, with a series of six consecutive wins in the middle of the season. In the end, he has won with more than 700 points ahead of Kraft and Polish rival, Kamil Stoch. 

“It’s amazing that he clinched the overall title so quickly,” said Noriaki Kasai, Kobayashi’s coach who finished third in the overall ranking twice in the ’90s.

Online sportsbooks in Japan are giving Ryoyu the best chances for the final win, while his older brother, Junshiro Kobayashi is getting much worse odds. He finished 19th place last season, even a top 10 finish would be a great result from him. But Ryoyu has a few tougher opponents who can try to defeat him this season. 

 Ryoyu Kobayashi is leading the World Cup [Yk1967 [CC BY-SA]

The main opponents, Kraft and Geiger

Stefan Kraft is one of the most successful sportsmen at the moment in ski jumping. He has won the overall World Cup in 2016/17, and also won the four hills and raw air tournament.  He was the best in the world championship in 2017 both in normal hill and large hill, but only finished 13th and 18th in the Olympics.  Kraft was very close to Kobayashi in Raw Air last season, finishing only three points behind.  This season he has won the race in Russia and finished second two more times, he is currently in third place. He has the odds of 6.00 to win the world cup, but he might need some extra performance to reach it. 

In the 2020 Ski Jumping World Cup betting odds, the second favorite with 4.50 odds is German skier Karl Geiger. Even though he hasn’t won any race yet, he finished on the podium almost every occasion. Thanks to this balanced performance, he is in second place at the moment, only 25 points behind Kobayashi. His best results have been achieved in a team, a silver in the 2018 Olympics and a gold medal in last year’s World Championship. In the World Cup, he finished on the 10th place in 2019, so his great performance is a bit of a surprise.

Surprises of the season

Some of the experienced skiers are not doing so great this season. Like former World Cup winner and Olympic Champion Polish Kamil Stoch, who is only 8th at the moment.  Nonetheless, he is one of the greatest Polish ski jumpers. He has two overall World Cup and two four hills tournament wins. Also two world championship titles and three Olympic Gold Medals. He has been competing in the summer ski jumping Grand Prix season, winning the home race in Zakopane, so fans and the experts were expecting more from him, but of course, he can still improve on his result.  His odds are 51.00 now for the overall win.

But fans could learn the name of new talent, Norwegian Marius Lindvik. Online gambling sites in Japan are already counting him in the favorites, he has the odds of 9.00 to win the overall standing. Lindvik is only 21, this is his third season in the World Cup. For his talent, a silver from the 2016 Youth Olympics and several team medals from the Junior World Championships are the proof. And of course, his current performance, as he has won his first World Cup event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and then straight away his second as well in Innsbruck. Hopefully, none of the skiers will suffer any big falls, not like the ones in this article.