Junior World-Champion Jaka Hvala wins qualification in snowy Harrachov-Colloredo sixth!

Junior World-Champion Jaka Hvala wins qualification in snowy Harrachov-Colloredo sixth! We were able to see three 200s during the qualification shown by winner Jaka Hvala (203m; 196.5points), second Maciej Kot (205m; 194.9points) and third in line Rune Velta (202m; 192.7points). Surprise of the day has been local Cestmir Kozisek, who was already showing in Vikersund that flying is his strength. Kozisek managed 196.5m and got rank four for this (188.8points). Italy’s best jumper Sebastian Colloredo took the sixth place with an amazing try of 194m (186.6points) right behind Austrian Michael Hayböck, who landed a 195m-flight (188.2points). Colloredo has all reason to be happy about this. We hope, he can continue to show his good flying feeling during the weekend.

Martin Koch still stays behind his own expectations. His jump of 195m was only possible because of nice conditions, which brought him -11.3points and the ninth rank. Anders Fannemel (7th; 197m) and Maximilian Mechler from Germany (8th; 193m) have been luckier and could land ahead of Koch. 191m by Andreas Wank completed the top ten. The Summer-Grand-Prix winner of 2012 was as unsatisfied as ever with his performance. Gregor Deschwanden on the other hand can be really content. He jumped to his second best qualification result and proved once more that he is establishing himself as an inherent part of the World-Cup. Norwegian Fredrik Bjerkeengen, who recently won the COC in Neustadt, had a fantastic day and finished his first flying event in Harrachov on rank 15. Once again, Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes landed on the 17th place, his training colleague Peter Frenette got qualified as 26th. He will be fighting again for points in tomorrow’s competition.

Already the training brought a considerable performance of local hero Antonin Hajek, who started in Czech’s national group. He could totally convince with finishing the training with a 190m-jump and he could also stay in the leader’s box during the qualification for a while due to his try of 182.5m. This made him 13th in the end.

The German youngsters Marinus Kraus and Felix Schoft both got their chance to compete here because of their top results in the Continental-Cup and had no problems to qualify for tomorrow. Also the Finnish and the French one-man-team consisting of Olli Muotka and Vincent Descombes-Sevoie will be seen on Saturday.

However Andrea Morassi has to take part in tomorrow’s competition as a viewer, while his team mate Davide Bresadola will get his chance to show himself. Unfortunately no Russian jumper made the qualification. They will get a new try on Sunday.

By the way, the longest flight of today wasn’t shown by a prequalified jumper but by Maciej Kot (205m). Only Gregor Schlierenzauer came close with 204m. Jan Matura, who’s the first prequalified jumper made his home crowd happy with 200m. Will there be a better length shown this weekend? We will find out about it tomorrow at 16.00!

Check back for nice pictures and our total news coverage from Harrachov!

by Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)