Slovenia wins the team event in Zakopane ahead of dominant Poland

Slovenia wins the team event in Zakopane ahead of dominant Poland

11/01/2013 20:20

The Polish team among Piotr Zyła, Maciej Kot, Krzysztof Mietus and Kamil Stoch lost their predicted victory to Slovenia with a gap of 9.1points, while Austria struggled to place three, leaving a perplexed Germany behind.

Today’s team event in Zakopane was so much different than expected. Poland seems already to be through with jumps by Piotr Zyła (129m) and Maciej Kot (133m). And also after their strongest man Kamil Stoch landed a 133m- performance, no one doubted that they could win in front of their home crowd. But unfortunately their second youngest member Krzysztof Mietus had bad luck with the wind and already reached ground after 108m. Not even another 130m by Kamil Stoch could change the situation. This finally gave Slovenia the chance to gain their second win in a WC team competition. The last time they managed to jump on the first place was in Oberstdorf in February 2012, when Peter Prevc brought them the victory with the jump that injured his shoulder. Today he was more sovereign as their final jumper and secured the victory for his team with 123.5m. Jaka Hvala, the youngest team mate today, was best in his group in both jumps (126m each) and also Robert Kranjec was able to achieve this with his second try (126.5m). Also Jurij Tepeš seems to be stabilized again and even showed 127.5m in the first round.

There was a lot of fighting for the third place also. Favorite Norway, who seemed to have the best chances for a place behind Poland, was disappointing in the end. They started really promising with Rune Velta opening for the Norwegian team with 132.5m. And also Anders Jacobsen was not giving space for other teams to overtake them (128m). But both Anders Bardal and Tom Hilde didn’t have their best day today. Hilde’s first jump was rather average but in the final round he had a really bad blast from the side and could only save himself from falling by landing after 90m. Unfortunately this and Bardal’s average tries let Norway fall back to rank seven in the end.

That grave changing brought Austria their big chance to reach the podium. As Schlierenzauer is still sick with the flu, it was Stefan Kraft, who acted as their final jumper. While Wolfgang Loitzl (126/123.5m) and Andreas Kofler (128/129.5m) did a good job today, it was his task to bring them into the top three. And the young Austrian managed this in his first team competition in a WC with bravura.

Another team, which obviously had other expectations than the reality they have to face now is Germany. With a rather weak Andreas Wank and normal jumps by Andreas Wellinger neither Richard Freitag nor Severin Freund could do anything about the fourth place today although he finished the competition with 129m, which has been the second best performance in his group.

The Czech Republic reached another fifth place, which is their best result since a fourth place that they got in 1992. Lukas Hlava and Jan Matura showed the best results, while Roman Koudelka lost some of his new strength with 105m in the second round.

Ilia Rosliakov (126m) and Dimitry Vassiliev (131m) had the best performances for the Russian Federation. Both finished as third in their group and landed on the sixth place along with Alexey Romashov and Denis Kornilov, who still does not seem to be pain free from his fall in Bischofshofen.

Nice to mention is also the performance of team Italy. Roberto Dellasega, Andrea Morassi and Davide Bresadola showed acceptable jumps, which were crowned by Sebastian Colloredo’s 125.5m in the first round.

And to keep you up to date, here are some breaking news:

German Danny Queck, who hurt his knee in training in Wisla has to pause with exercises for two weeks due to his knee being full of blood and swollen. But luckily, no ligament structures are ruptured. We wish him a speedy recovery!

Now, also the Finnish teams confirms, that Janne Ahonen is seriously planning his comeback. He already jumped two training sessions and is eager to save Finnish skijumping! We think this is a brave desicion!

The party in Zakopane continues……with the qualification, which originally should have taken place on Thursday evening but had to be postponed due to strong wind to tomorrow afternoon at 15.30 and the competition following at 17.00!

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)