EYOF and Universiade 2015
Steep into a world beside WC and COC and meet the youngsters!
The EYOF 2015
After we presented to you the EYOF, which was taking place in Tschagguns/ Gaschurn (AUS), we'd like to tell you about, who dominated the jumpings and which teams have been the lucky winners.
The mean age in all competitions is 16, some of the athletes are 17 years old.
The winner of Tuesday's ladies race was Sofia Tikhonova from Russia ahead of Henriette Kraus from Germany and her teammates Agnes Reisch and Luisa Görlich. The top ten was completed by Mariia Iakovleva (RUS), Tonje Bakke (NOR), Zdena Pesatova (CZE), Jana Mrakotova (CZE) and Anita Seretinek (SLO). Best Austrian was Timna Moser on rank 11. Besides those nations, also Bianca Elena Stefanuta and Raluca Iulia Stefan from Romania, Sandra Sillaste from Estonia, Virag Voros (Hungary) and Krystyna Droniak from the Urkaine took part in this competition.
On the following day, Niko Kytoesaho from Finland won ahead of Domen Prevc and Dawid Jarzabek (POL). Jesper Oedegaard (NOR), Sorin Nicolae Mitrofan from Romania and Andreas Alamommo (FIN) followed them. Best German was Jonathan Siegel on rank 13, followed by the best Austrian Julian Wienerroither on the 14th place.
There you can see that especially those nations, who are not ahead in the World-Cup, dominate ahead of the „big players“ like Germany and Austria. It'll be exciting to see, whether this well-known constellation of winner nations that we see in the World-Cup will change in the coming years.
Nice to mention is also that the Suisse team had Kevin Romang in the points on rank 27 followed by France's Hugo Toux. Italy sent Alessio Longo, Manuel Longo and Kevin Rosenwirth, while Bulgary had Martin Zografski and Evelin Mitev starting in this competition. Sweden's Marcus Flemstroem and Kevin Berg also took part.
The men's team event, which followed on Wednesday was dominated by Slovenia ahead of Finland and Austria. Germany missed the podium.
But the most interesting thing was definitely the mixed team competition in which every nation had to send 2 male and 2 female jumpers to build a team. 7 teams took part making Germany the winner ahead of Russia and Czech Republic. Norway and Austria stayed behind.
Universiade in Strbsko Pleso, Slovakia
The first in a series of 5 competitions was Tuesday's ladies race. Irina Avvakumova from Russia was the clear winner on the k-90 ahead of 20-year old Yuka Kobayashi and Russian teammate Anastasiya Gladisheva. They were followed by Michaela Dolezelova (CZE), Xueyao Li from China and Aki Matsuhashi from Japan. Unfortunately, there haven't been many ladies on the start because of the World-Cup in Oberstdorf, for which most of them have the right to start.
In the men's competition it looked quite different as there have been more aspirants in the fight for the final round. 53 competitors from countries such as China (Li Chao, Bingrong Wang), Ukraine (Vitaliy Kalinichenko, Andrii Klymchuk, Andriy Kalinchuk, Vatalii Dodyuk, Igor Yakibyuk), Turkey (Faik Yuksel, Mustafa Oztasyonar) and Slovakia (Mojmir Nosal) as well as the well-known other nations performed on Tuesday. The winner was Vladimir Zografski, who was rather closely followed by Ilmir Hazetdinov and his teammate Evgeniy Klimov. Mikhail Maksimochkin, Junshiro Kobayashi, Miran Zupancic and the 20-year old Stanislaw Biela missed the podium. Jumpers such as Alexey Romashov (12th) and Cestmir Kozisek (17th) couldn't keep up with the best of the day. The German and Austrian athletes couldn't place their jumpers in the top ten either with Thomas Ortner being best Austrian on rank 14 and Jan Mayländer finishing as best German on rank 23. Italy' only participant was Michael Lunardi (22) on the 31st place.
The ladies team event made Anastasiya Gladysheva and Irina Avvakumova the winners ahead of a balanced Japanese team (Aki Matsuhashi and Yuka Kobayashi). Vladena Pustkova and Michaela Dolezelova completed the podium. The Chinese team among Tong Ma and Xueyao Li stayed behind. The mixed team Svetlana Gladikova and Katharina Keil came in as 5th.
What really was a fun thing to see was the mixed team competition with teams consisting of one male and one female jumper. Japan sent 2 teams, which landed on the first place on the podium (Yuka Kobayashi and Junshiro Kobayashi) and the third place (Aki Matsuhashi and Kanta Takanashi). The second place went to Anastasiya Gladisheva and her colleague Mikhail Maksimochkin from Russia. Russia's second team with Irina Avvakumova and Ilmir Hazetdinov missed the podium and ended up as 4th. They were followed by the first of two Czech teams (Michaela Dolezelova and Jan Soucek) and the only Austrians (Katharina Keil and Lukas Müller). China even sent 2 teams as well, which took the following places.
This gives us kind of a glance at how the youngsters could become parts of the big circus in the future. It makes clear that ski jumping in the Czech Republic does have new blood and that also underestimated countries do have competitive athletes!
The last competition in this year's Universiade in Strbske Pleso (Slovakia) will be the men's team event that'll follow tomorrow (Sunday).
