The Favorites of the team competition
Today awaits us the men’s team competition which will be held on the hill in Falun. There is still some questions we can’t answer, like this if the competition would be held on the big hill (as it was planned) or on the normal hill. The main problem is the wind, which can throw a spanner in the works. But despite this one thing is certain – the competition once again will be entertaining and the battle for gold will be aligned.
No one doubts that the main characters of today’s show will be the Germans and Norwegians. Why? There are plenty arguments. Both of the nations already won the gold in the current championships – Germany in the mixed team competition on the normal hill and in the individual competition on the big hill, in which the best turned out to be Severin Freund who achieved silver on the normal hill and Norway won the individual gold on the normal hill, thanks to Rune Velta, who also finished 3rd on the big hill.
We surely can say that both Freund and Velta will be the very strong part of their teams. Both of them are now in their greatest shape, what they proved with the medals. But in the team competition counts not only one athlete but the whole team. So who will represent these countries in this competition?
Germany will be represented by experienced Michael Neumayer, Markus Eisenbichler, Richard Freitag and Severin Freund. The only uncertain in this team is Eisenbichler, who can show a good as well as a bad jump. In the competition on the big hill he finished 10th, but we can’t surely say that he will be jumping that good in the team competition. But the head coach of the national team didn’t had any doubts in his decision – Freund, Freitag and Eisenbichler were his favorites, for the last place in the team fought Neumayer, Kraus and Wellinger, and the best turned out to be the most experienced of them.
The Norwegian team is composed of the well-known, titled and certain jumpers – as first will be jumping Anders Bardal, then Anders Jacobsen, Anders Fannemel and Rune Velta. All of them jump equally and very good and that could tip the scales at the Norwegians.
The battle for the bronze looks very interesting too. There are few nations who can “jump” on the podium – Austria, Slovenia and Poland. Austria won the gold in 2013, while Poland won the bronze medal in this event. But the personal composition is different than in Val di Fiemme two years ago. Austria will be represented by former World Cup leader and winner of the 63rd Four Hills Tournament Stefan Kraft, Michael Hayboeck, Manuel Poppinger and Gregor Schlierenzauer. Poland will be represented by Piotr Zyla, Klemens Muranka, Jan Ziobro an the double Olympic champion from Sochi Kamil Stoch, while Slovenia will be represented by Jurij Tepes, Nejc Dezman, Jernej Damjan and Peter Prevc. With these teams all of the nations have a huge chance to get a good result, at least in the Top 5.
Worth mention is the start of the representatives of the hosts in the team competition. We can’t say that Sweden has top ski jumpers and it wasn’t sure if they will decide to form the team for the World Championships. But eventually Simon Eklund, Jonas Sandell, Christian Inngjerdingen and Carl Nordin found themselves in the national team, which will be the curiosity of the competition, but if we’ll take a look at the results of the trainings they won’t play a significant role – Nordin jumped 95 meters, while the rest of the team didn’t reach even 85. meter – Sandell jumped 83,5 meters, Inngjerdingen 81 meters and Eklund 80,5m.
But anyway everything seems that today’s competition will be very interesting. If the weather conditions let the competition be equal and fair, we will see the really exciting battle.
By Anna Sobol
