Skiflying world-championship Vikersund, report quali and first competition
- ski-jumping-italy
- Feb 24, 2012
- 3 min read
We waited, we hoped- but we have to wait even longer to see the most important competitions this season: the skiflying world-championship in Vikersund, Norway. Thursday's qualification brought some news, some great flights and some surprises- but also high expectations. I, personally couldn't wait to see them fly some 200m – and they did. Tom Hilde wasn't set for qualification because he just reached place 32 in training- Bjoern Einar Romoeren, Rune Velta, Anders Fannemel and Anders Bardal have been set instead and showed some awesome jumps bringing Fannemel on 3rd place (211m) and Velta on 2nd place with 221,5m in the qualification. Andreas Kofler won the qualification with an awesome jump of 221m. Vincent Descombes Sevoie set a new national record with 221,5m – 7meters more.
Martin Koch and Thomas Morgenstern decided not to jump -they were prequalified. The gate-decision that the jury made wasn't that awesome letting the top ten jump average results but nothing special - but it seems it's a hard job nowadays with the wind in their backs.
So far so good but then came the wind…
Yesterday's trial round has been cancelled, telling the fans, the competition will start in time. But we had to wait another hour to find out, the sunny weather brought a lot of wind. After a long waiting time- according to Tom Hilde who has been prejumper it was difficult and he had to warm up several times before given the chance to finally jump. The jury tried its best to make it a fair competition anyway but finally they lost against the stormy wind. Despite of this there are some positive things to say: We had a surprising Morassi today, who managed a great flight to 203m although he didn't have great wind conditions. With his 'old mistake' to jump out one-sided he nearly flew out of the jumping. Some of the skijumpers and some of you might think that cancelling the competition was best -which is totally right regarding the time the jumpers had to stand around waiting, make a warm up for several times and getting nervous plus there was a lack of fairness because of the wind. On the other hand it's a sad result for those, who had awesome jumps and a great standing after their flight.
But as far as I know, there are good news: Even though yesterday's competition won't exist in the records of history, the personal and nation records that have been set are most likely counting. There we have Descombes-Sevoie with his flight of 225m, Denis Kornilov being very happy with 232m and Rune Velta with his new personal best of 234m! Although some of the favorites for the title suffered from bad conditions- I'm talking of Simon Ammann (196m, 14.place), Schlierenzauer (199,5m; 13.place), Stoch -who only got 152,5m because of a gust of wind and would have been out, Bjoern Einer Romoeren (192m, 18.) and even Anders Fannemel (11.) and Richie Freitag (15., although he had 214,5m); we also saw awesome flights by the Germans! The standing after 35 of 40 jumpers was: Freund leading with 220,5m ahead of Velta and Maximilian Mechler, who couldn't stop smiling because of a 222,5m flight without any mistakes!
Since Stoch had such bad conditions the jury started waiting for a better wind- but what they got after 40 minutes of waiting have been gusts of wind about 11-13m/s.
Martin Koch, who would have been the next jumper after Stoch understands the cancellation, as he told heute.at. He states the jury decided for the health of the athletes. The decision to cancel the jumping was made at 19:45 and hopefully brings justice for the jumpers in today's competition, better results for the favorites and hopefully the same good flight by those, who have been lucky yesterday. Because where is justice, when the top ten gets a new chance that all the others cannot use a second time?
Stay tuned for more information and a new report of today's individual competition that is held in 3 rounds without a trial round -starting time: 15:00!
by Peggy Kierstan (pikayartist)
Small anecdote: Tom Hilde gave an interview for ORF yesterday. The reporter asked him who his favorite for the title of the world champion is. Tom answered, it would be Gregor Schlierenzauer. Gregor, who heard that, went to Tom and stated: I love you, Tom.
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