Engelberg: Peter Prevc celebrates his second qualification victory of his career.

Engelberg: Peter Prevc celebrates his second qualification victory of his career!

The 20-year old Slovenian athlete from SK Triglav Kranj jumped 131.5m from gate 20, while second placed Tom Hilde showed the farthest jump of the day with amazing 140m- however from gate 22. The lower gate brought Prevc some plus points, additionally to his wind compensation. In the end it made him the winner with 140.4counts- 0.8points more than Hilde received for his try.

Jaka Hvala finished third with 125.5m (also from gate 20) and 135points. Not only Slovenia can be a happy nation regarding the results of its athletes. It was also a good day for Poland: Kamil Stoch is back with a fourth place, 127.5m and 134.2points! His team mates also showed a good form with Matciej Kot on place seven and Klemens Muranka (who’s back in the WC after his eye-problems, which needed to be treated with surgery) on tenth place. Also Piotr Zyla made the qualification on the 28thplace, while Kubacki finished 32nd. Also Krzysztof Mietus made it (37th).

Also in the competition will be Antonin Hajek, Alexey Romashov, Marco Grigoli, Kaarel Nurmsalu and Jan Matura. Nice to mention are the great performances of Martin Cikl (18th) and Ilia Rosliakov. The latter finished the qualification on the 13th rank (121.5m) leaving names like Vassiliev, Stjernen and Matura behind. Best German has been Michael Neumayer (fifth; 129.5m; 131.3points), followed by Wolfgang Loitzl, the best one from Austria (sixth; 125m; 130.7points).

Out of the group of the prequalified jumpers, the best jump with 130m came from Simon Ammann, who could already place himself on the podium in Kuusamo two weeks ago and is eager to repeat this on home snow. The second best length showed Richard Freitag with 128m and 1.5m more than yellow bib owner and friend Severin Freund could offer. But this doesn’t mean much as those jumps are only training for the top ten of the world.

But let’s also have a look at those not being prequalified: Still searching for any kind of form is Robert Kranjec. The ski-flying world champion is jumping as if he never learned how to do it in a proper way. We hope his knot will be loosened soon.

On the other hand, we also have a nice improvement given by Finnish jumper Lauri Asikainen with 124m (128.3points; ninth). His team mate Mika Kulmala unfortunately didn’t make it, which leaves him in the game with Larinto alone. But regarding the qualification results, Finland can count itself to the lucky nations. France, Italy and the United States had less luck and couldn’t place any of their athletes onto the start list for the competition that follows at 14.00.

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)