The COC arrived in Sapporo – Felix Schoft and Gregor Deschwanden are successful!

The COC arrived in Sapporo – Felix Schoft and Gregor Deschwanden are successful!

12/01/2013 13:15 This weekend’s Continental-Cup is held in Sapporo, Japan. A total of 52 jumpers travelled east and made German Felix Schoft winner on the Miyanomori-jumping (HS 100) on Friday and Swiss Gregor Deschwanden winner on the Ōkurayama-jumping (HS 134) on the following day.

Let’s have a look at Friday first:

After the first round, three-time COC-winner Schoft was already the leading jumper with 95m and a 3-point advantage of Lukas Müller from Austria (94m). The latter shared his place with Dezman and Suzuki and was able to leave Kang and Zemancic, who jumped 94m (or 94.5m) also, behind. Seou Choi and Gregor Deschwanden, who shared rank eight after the first round, have been able to improve. Choi made it on the third place of the podium (236.5points), while Deschwanden finished fourth (234.0points). Schoft was also able to improve and set the farthest jump again with 95.5m (259.5points). Lukas Müller kept his amazing second place with another 94m-performance (242.5points). Dezman fell back on the sixth place and Suzuki even on rank eight. Chil Ku-Kang had bad luck and ended up on place 27 with 76.5m (200points). Fumihisa Yumoto climbed up from rank twelve to place seven (226points) and German Christian Heim managed the same from 14 to eight. Ole Marius Ingvaldsen completed the top ten. 42-year old Okabe finished this competition on rank 13 and left numerous athletes, who are more than 20 years younger than him behind. Nice to mention is also that US-jumper Chris Lamb was holding the 14th place after showing 88.5m. Unfortunately he couldn’t keep this position in the end.

Saturday changed a bit:

Gregor Deschwanden and Ole Marius Ingvaldsen secured themselves a place on the podium and pushed Felix Schoft to rank three. 21-year old Deschwanden was able to set his first top three-result in a COC- and this is already a victory (135.5/131.5m; 275.1points)! Congrats to the Swiss man for this success! Ingvaldsen, who is a permanent member of the top ten, was able to set the third second place on his account (134/128m; 269.1points). Until now, he never had the chance to win. With a clear gap of 29.5points it was yesterday’s winner Felix Schoft, who followed (128/119m; 239.6points). Miran Zupancic, who has been in the COC in 2003 and came back in 2012 after a longer absence, was able to even improve from rank five yesterday to the fourth place in today’s race. Atle Pedersen Rønsen, who was grapping the third place after the first round with 131.5m, fell back to the 14th place after a weak 109m try. And again, Takanobu Okabe was able to gain 7 places from the first to the second round and finished fifth (236.1points). Respect! Yesterday’s podium- athlete Lukas Müller ended up on the seventh rank (229.5points), while Slovenia placed another three athletes in the top ten (Andraz Progajc 6th; Ernest Prislic 9th -first points for him!- and Nejc Dezman 10th). And not to forget: Kim Rene Elverum Sorsell, who fell to place 25 yesterday after finishing only in top twenty before, improved to rank eight (228.6points)! This time, Chil Ku-Kang was able to keep up with the upper placed and even improved from place 20 to 15 in the end! Well done for the Korean man!

A look at the overall shows us some changes after today’s competition that already set place at 3.00 in the morning CET: Stefan Kraft, who’s currently jumping a terrific WC-season is still leading the COC-ranking with 345points. Felix Schoft climbed up to the second place (271points), while Klemens Muranka, who’s currently busy in the Polish WC-competitions, fell back to rank four (245points). The third place is now engaged by Ingvaldsen (265points).

full list of results

COC-overall ranking

The next competition in Sapporo follows on Sunday! Stay tuned for infos and a detailed report!

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)