Germany wins team competition in Lahti

Germany wins team competition in Lahti

09/03/2013 21:10

After the silver medal they got in the World-Championships in Val di Fiemme last week, the German team managed to win today’s competition in Lahti clearly with an advantage of 40.7points.

Andreas Wank, Michael Neumayer, Severin Freund and Richard Freitag, who were building the German team today declassed their rivals with a total score of 1079,5 points. The second place was taken by the Norwegian team consisting of Rune Velta, Andreas Stjernen, Anders Bardal and Anders Jacobsen with 1038,8 points. The Polish team completed the podium (Maciej Kot, Piotr Zyla, Krzysztof Mietus, Kamil Stoch; 1036,2 points).

The farthest jump of the day was shown by Severin Freund. He was sailing to 131meters in the final round.

Austria misses the podium

The Austrian team had no choice but to give in to the fight for a place on the podium against the Poles. The first good jumps by Stefan Kraft, Wolfgang Loitzl and Manuel Fettner weren’t enough to keep the second place behind Germany that they got after the first round. Gregor Schlierenzauer, who is still struggling with the Salpausselkä-jumping hill, couldn’t keep up with those competitors with jumps of 123 and 120meters today.

Finland reaches the second round

A reason to be happy was also given to the Finns, who have been competing in front of their home crowd with Olli Muotka, Ville Larinto, Mika Kulmala and Lauri Asikainen. After an average first round the local heros profited from the out of the Russian team. Because of Dimitry Vassiliev, who couldn’t start because of health reasons, the Russian team only had three athletes to start and therefore they dropped out with the Italians after the first round.

In the second round on the other hand we could see an improvement of the Finns. Olli Muotka was changing for the better from 109.5 to 119m in the final round, Ville Larinto from 110.5 to 118.5m.

For tomorrow’s individual competition only Olli Muotka and Lauri Asikainen are qualified. Ville Larinto didn’t manage the qualification because he was disqualified due to a suit that wasn’t compliant to the rules. Anssi Koivuranta, who ended the season earlier because of still having pain in his knee, won’t take part as well. He announced that via his official facebook-site.

-by Evelin Schröfel (@_SkiJumping01)

- translation by Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)