Karl Geiger won the first leg of the Ski Jumping World Cup season ©Getty Images

Karl Geiger began the Ski Jumping World Cup season where he left off last campaign, winning the season-opening contest on Nizhny Tagil's large hill.

The German finished last season with back-to-back wins and completed his hat-trick the best part of eight months later.

Geiger's opening jump of 134.5 meres was the biggest of the day at the Russian venue, scoring 126.8 points.

A second-round jump of 133.0m scored 125.6, and the total of 252.4 gave the German victory by 8.7 points.

Japan's Ryōyū Kobayashi was second, just as was the case at the last two World Cups of last season.

Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud, the reigning World Cup champion, was third, 12.7 points adrift of Geiger.

Naoki Nakamura from Japan was fourth, representing his first top-five finish at a World Cup.

Back-to-back Olympic large hill champion Kamil Stoch of Poland completed the top five.

A second World Cup leg is scheduled at the same venue tomorrow.