The Japanese team presents itself unbeatable!

The Japanese team presents itself unbeatable!

28/07/2013 10:50

Another day went by leaving the Japanese team as a strong and closed one. I barely saw a team mixed of young and old and still so unitary in its performance. They won sovereignly (907.6points) ahead of Slovenia (883.6points) and Germany (873.3points).

Noriaki Kasai has been part of team competitions for over 23 years, while this is a rather new experience for Yuki Ito and Sara Takanashi, both being born in the mid-nineties. Yuta Watase on the other hand isn’t one of the youngsters anymore but developed his strength rather late in his career. He has been part of team competitions 19 times over the years.

Already in the trial round it was clear that Germany will play a role in the fight for a podium. Andreas Wank and Richard Freitag showed some the best jumps there (102.5 and 100m). They were surrounded by the Czech men Lukas Hlava (106m!) and Roman Koudelka (98m). Unfortunately the latters do not have as competitive girls as the Germans have with Ulrike Grässler, Svenja Würth and Carina Vogt. Same applies for the Swiss team and the Russians, while it seems to be vice versa in the Italian and French team. Only a few nations can say of themselves to be balanced – such as Japan, Slovenia, Austria and Norway. But this time the Norge guys had to skip this mixed-team race because there haven’t been any Norwegian ladies in Hinterzarten. That gave an interesting turn to the whole competition leaving a podium place that would have been occupied most likely open to another nation.

As for the first round we saw a surprisingly strong Canadian team with Atsuko Tanaka (98.5/92m - have you already read our interview with her?), Alexandra Pretorius (102.5/105.5m), who had an amazingly strong weekend in Hinterzarten, newcomer Dusty Korek (98/93.5m) and well-known Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes.

They have been on the third rank after the first jump and outnumbered nations like Slovenia (4th) and Austria (6th). Unfortunately, Boyd-Clowes left a few meters on the jumping in the second round and so Canada was degraded to place four in the end.

Some might have stroke the Slovenian team off the podium after the first round but with Matjaz Pungertar they fought their way back. With jumps of 103.5m by Maja Vtic and 100.5m by Nejc Dezman they secured themselves the second place even ahead of Germany.

The German team could present 106.5- and 106m-tries by Richard Freitag and an incredible 107.5m-jump by Andreas Wank, who couldn’t stand this one and bruised his knee.

The always-winning Austrians (Hölzl, Kraft, Seifriedsberger and Fettner) have been very disappointing during the whole race. Only Stefan Kraft was giving acceptable tries (96.5/102m) but as such a competition needs four athletes to give their best, they only reached the seventh rank in the end.

As usual, the jumpers from Switzerland (namely the Windmüller-sisters, Ammann and Deschwanden) have been lucky to make it into the final round, while the Czech team couldn’t reach that despite of their good male athletes.

Nice to mention is that team Italy has also been better than the Austrians with an amazing 100m-try by Davide Bresadola and two third ranks in their group for Bresadola and Colloredo for their second jump. I would have wished for Elena Runggaldier to be better, while Roberta D’Agostina, who was part of team for the first time, showed a good performance.

During the Summer-Grand-Prix we’ll see a team competition of the men in Wisla, on August 2nd and another mixed-team competition in Courchevel. Stay tuned for this!

• By Peggy Kierstan (@pikayartist)