The World-Championships in Val di Fiemme- Team competition

Austria wins the team-competition, Norway loses the medal in the end, the Polish team gets bronze for the first time in a team event

04/03/2013 20:56

SkiJumpingItaly 2013 - (c) Kathrin Müller

It claimed to be the most tensing competition of these World-Championships but it ended with a wide range of mixed feelings.

Winner Austria definitely deserves the medal after having Manuel Fettner landing his second jump (128m) in a telemark with only one ski!! The binding opened right after the landing and made him lose his ski but somehow "the second man of the day" as fans enthusiastically called him afterwards, didn't fell until he reached the fall line- and then it happened because he was jubilating about his glorius performance in the outrun. He saved the gold medal as did Thomas Morgenstern, who hurt his knee in his second jump but still landed it at 129.5m without changing the expression on his face in the outrun. He'll miss the upcoming jumpings in Lahti and Kuopio. Gregor Schlierenzauer on the other hand seems to lack a bit of power as he became only fifth in his group twice (124.5/129m), while Wolfgang Loitzl was leading in both of his jumps (130.5/128m). The same magic was shown by Kamil Stoch (134/130m). The longest jump in the competition went to Andreas Wank, who opened for Germany with 135.5m.

The Germans, who have been on the third rank in the end, showed a stable and solid performance with Michael Neumayer getting acceptable judges points and Richard Freitag managing 130 and 129.5m. But the best of them in his group was Wank.

As I said, team Germany believed to get the third place behind the Norwegians but after a mistake in the gate changing, they lost points and therefore have been degraded to the unlucky fourth. How did that happen? As you know, the trainers are allowed to demand a lower gate for a jumper. It became a clever tactic to get pluspoints for the gate, when starting lower than the rest. Of course, only good jumpers, who manage a good length anyway can profit from this. One of them is Anders Bardal. And it needs a lot of knowledge and far-sightedness to use this possibility skillful. And one, who definitely is able to do this is headcoach Alex Stöckl. It's not right clear, where the exact mistake was. However, it ended with Stöckl demanding a lower gate, which was confirmed by the jury and counted by the computer. In fact, Bardal didn't start from a lower gate in his first jump so he got the gate points undeservingly.

After the last jumper went down, Norway was crowned silver medal winner but shortly after someone rejected the end results, which led to a change in the top three:

Norway lost more than six points and fell back to rank four. The former fourth Poland climbed up and took home the bronze medal with only 0.8points behind Germany! This is the first ever team medal for Poland in a WCS! Congratulations to the amazing Polish team.

Anyway, we feel with Norway and hope such a problem won't happen anymore. You would have deserved it as well, team Norge!

The Japanese athletes among Nori Kasai (who won his group with 131m in the final round) could gain the fifth place ahead of Slovenia, which is really far behind since the end of the team tour, and Czech Republic.

Team Italy showed a solid and balanced performance today with Andrea Morassi being the best of them. They finished eighth. Russia, with its stumbling Dimitry Vassiliev, Switzerland, with a distressingly average Simon Ammann as start jumper and Finland as well as Kazakhstan didn't reach the final round.

Don't be sad because the World-Championships are over. The World-Cup continues and is traveling to Lahti and Kuopio next. Stay tuned!

- by Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)