Robert Kranjec vanquished Vikersund in a furious competition - Michael Neumayer second

Robert Kranjec vanquished Vikersund in a furious competition - Michael Neumayer second

28/01/2013 15:22

Although the jury was a bit reserved with its gate decisions, it has been an amazing, hard and enjoyable competition. The ski-flying world champion Robert Kranjec deservingly won the second competition on Norway's coolest flying hill. His flights of 231.5 and 230m brought him 416.5points and an 11.1point-advantage. Michael Neumayer, who has been third after the first round with 223m, even improved with 231m in the final (405.5points). Not even the judges points could prevent him from the podium this time (-and the judges points have been the point for not landing there often during this season). It would have been the best result of his career anyway (after a third place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2008 and one in Willingen in 2010) but to crown this day for the 34-year old German, Gregor Schlierenzauer did him the favor to land at 225m, which wasn't enough to overtake him. So the latter finally had to be happy with the third place (400.0points).

Although Andreas Kofler and Thomas Morgenstern out of the Austrian team, as well as Jaka Hvala (who is in Liberec for the Junior World Championships), Dimitry Vassiliev and Denis Kornilov weren't part of this season's first ski-flying competition, the top ten reflects the situation in the world-cup quite well. Three Slovenians made it into the top five (Kranjec 1st; Prevc and Tepes 5th). Simon Ammann found old strength and became fourth (216/222.5m; 393.6points), while Poland set two of its jumpers into the list of best: Kamil Stoch on rank seven with tries of 207 and 222m (386.6points) and Piotr Zyla, who seemed to have great fun in Vikersund on the tenth place (216/215m; 377.1points). German Severin Freund supported his mate on the podium with the ninth rank (216/211.5m; 378.7points). Despite of this, we have to admit that the Norwegian performance was a bit disappointing. First it looked quite well because Anders Fannemel won the qualification that was held minutes before with 223.5m ahead of Rune Velta (225.5m) and Gregor Deschwanden (208m). Bardal ended up as fourth. But then in the competition things changed. Except Andreas Stjernen, who is fighting his way back out of the shadows of his teammates with rank eight (204.5/228.5m; 380.4points), no other Norwegian jumper was able to reach the first ten places (Velta 13th, Bardal 17th, Fannemel 19th, Jacobsen 21st and Hilde 22nd). Obviously the pressure to compete in front of their home crowd was too much for them.

Czech’s high-flyer Jan Matura was fifth after a 219m-jump in the first round but fell back to rank eleven due to less good conditions for his second try. We are excited about what he will show next! Martin Koch on the other hand underachieved and finished 16th with only one 200-jump.

However for others was it a good day to gain points and so did Vincent Descombes-Sevoie (26th), Andrea Morassi (27th), Olli Muotka (29th) and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes (30th). Dawid Kubacki on place 28 was only able to reach the final round because Cestmir Kozisek, who was been pretty good again, wore a wrong suit.

Team Japan was missing at all, they are currently in training. Meanwhile Noriaki Kasai pulled his crucial ligament- but it's not broken and he's supposed to come back to full power soon.

Also to mention is that Peter Frenette becomes more stable. This was already shown in Sapporo, where he has been in the second round on both days. In Vikersund he landed on rank 31 two times and missed the final round just by inches. It seems like flying is his thing though, so we hope he can continue to gain points in the next flying competition, which will be in Harrachov, Czech Republic.

Stay tuned because SkiJumpingItaly will be right there in Harrachov for you to provide you with pictures and reports!

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)