That was the first day in Hinterzarten!

That was the first day in Hinterzarten!

26/07/2013 19:50

This might have been one of the hottest days this year – and the weather promises to become even hotter in the next two days. So fans can cool down by watching ski-jumping live at the Rothaus-Schanze or be updated here on SkiJumpingItaly.

The ladies gave the starting signal

The ladies started the day with a three round training session but no qualification as there are only 45 athletes on the hill. The training didn’t bring any surprises. The German and Canadian teams just skipped the training. But Sara Takanashi would have been best anyway. She led the first and third jump and was third in the middle. Jacqueline Seifriedsberger also gave a great performance being second in the last round. Coline Mattel didn’t have a good time with only being ranked in the 20s, while her colleague Lea Lemare was in the top ten with all jumps, having Julia Clair behind. Katja Pozun on the other hand was close behind Takanashi. The Japanese team is really strong- Yuki Ito, the 19-year old, even could be better than Takanashi once. Also the Slovenians started with full speed. Maja Vtic, Eva Logar, Spela Rogelj and Ursa Bogataj landed some good jumps. It promised to be a very exciting competition that would follow in the evening.

We also have some new faces: Lucie Mikova (CZE), Daria Grushina (RUS), Stefaniya Nadymova (RUS) will show their best as they are automatically in the competition.

The trial round wasn’t spectacular but the competition changed the course for some and paved the path for some others, who already presented themselves as strong.

But before we’ll analyze this one, let’s have a look at the men first.

New faces and old faces

The men started their training in the worst heat at 3pm. Bartlomej Klusek had a second nice try (14th, 100.5m), as had Junshiro Kobayashi in his first (98m). But all eyes have been on Finland’s hope: The great Janne Ahonen. While becoming 25th in the first round with 95.5m, it was clear that he can cope with the suit-changes well and didn’t lose his form- quite the contrary: He became better with every jump that he made. It might have been a relieve to the Finns already, when he finished ninth in the second training round (101m) but especially because that wasn’t the best he would show on this day...

Yuta Watase, one of the older guys in the Japanese team, had a great beginning of his summer season (98m- 3rd, 100m- 10th) as had Roman Koudelka (98m- 10th, 101.5m- 5th). Big hopes also lay on Gregor Deschwanden (14th, 8th) and Andreas Wellinger (2nd!, 7th) after great results in their training.

The Norwegian team on the other hand couldn’t cope with the jumping in the beginning, their results have been just average, only Tom Hilde could land 103m in the second try becoming second best.

Maciej Kot and Simon Ammann came into the right mood in the second round, Richard Freitag and Michael Neumayer showed stable good jumps but the best of the list – Stoch, Bardal, Prevc- couldn't convince with their performances. Would this change in the qualification round?

The field gets closer

One can say that some can be happy to be prequalified. Namely those are Peter Prevc and Anders Bardal. Both couldn’t break the 100m-line. Some others could and gave a big smile to their supporters. Dawid Kubacki won the qualification sovereignly with 106m (131.4points). But this wasn’t the best length of this day because that one came from Janne Ahonen (106.5m!), who became third along with Roman Koudelka (129.7points). Second has been Andreas Wellinger, who was only 0.3points behind the winner (105.5m). The only Austrian, who could convince, was Stefan Kraft with 103m on rank five (129.3points). He was followed by Karl Geiger and Andreas Wank (105.5m both). Noriaki Kasai became best Japanese on place eight (126.3points), followed by Lukas Hlava (124.9points) and Maciej Kot (124.3points).

Also Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes and Yuta Watase can be satisfied with their performance (11th and 12th). Local hero Danny Queck, who fell out of the WC last season due to knee problems boosted his show and went to the 14th rank but couldn’t tie in with his performance of last year.

Very nice to mention is that both Italian jumpers could easily qualify for Sunday’s competition: Sebastian Colloredo became 20th, his teammate Davide Bresadola got rank 26.

The best Norwegian in the field of qualifiers was Kim Rene Elverum Sorsell on place 23. But also Tom Hilde as prequalified jumper could keep up with the best with 104m. Only Severin Freund has been better than him with his 106.5m-jump.

Also nice to tell you is that Dusty Korek (CAN), Ilmir Hazetdinov (RUS), Pascal Kaelin (SUI) and Marat Zhaparov (KAZ) could also qualify for the individual race.

Rune Velta and Jaka Hvala on the other hand have been disqualified because of their suit. I can really imagine it was melting because of those temperatures.

I do not want to forget to tell you, Andreas Stjernen, Marco Grigoli and Kaarel Nurmsalu are among those, who couldn’t make it.

Here are the ladies!

The closure of the first day was given by the ladies’ individual competition. As you know, Sara Takanashi was of course the favorite for winning this. But her opponents presented themselves strong as well. One of them was Alexandra Pretorius from Canada. With her performance of 103.5m she made herself the best of the first round, leaving Sara Takanashi (2nd), Katja Pozun and Maja Vtic (3rd both) behind. This didn’t change in the final round. Alexandra Pretorius was the clear winner (103.5m/102.5m; 265.5points). Takanashi stayed second with 104 and 103.5m (260.8points), Katja Pozun was completing the podium (100/97.5m; 250.1points) leaving her teammate Vtic, who jumped half a meter less, behind (100/97m; 247.8points). Jacqueline Seifriedsberger followed them but wasn’t able to tackle as she couldn’t reach the 100m-line. She remained fifth (246.9points). The Japanese team has been amazingly strong placing three athletes in the top ten: Yuki Ito (19) as sixth and Yurina Yamada, who’s only three months older than Takanashi, on place ten. But also Germany (Svenja Würth, 7th), France (Lea Lemare, 9th) and Russia (Irina Avvakumova, 8th) have been able to reach the top ten list.

By the way: Sara Takanashi set the new hill record of 104m!

Elena Runggaldier was the only Italian, who was able to score points in the competition (25th), as was Vladena Pustkova for the Czech Republic. Nice to mention is also that Taylor Henrich, Wendy Vuik and Bigna Windmüller jumped among the top thirty.

This makes hungry for more! So stay tuned for the mixed competition. The trial round will start at 2pm, the competition at 3pm.

No one guessed it right yesterday, so we still have to give away signed booklets by Gregor Schlierenzauer. Wanna have one? Tell us, who you think will win today!

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)