Alexander Stöckl, Norway's head coach spoken with us.

Alexander Stöckl, Norway's head coach spoken with us. Skijumpingitaly: It is with great pleasure i can post a short interview with Norway head coach Alexander Stöckl.First of all, well done for your first team event victory with Norway...how does it feel to beat your home country Austria? Alexander Stöckl: Well, what should I say. It was a good feeling of course. But I won't put it as a victory AGAINST Austria, it was a victory FOR our team. The boys had very good jumps and made no mistakes and that's what it takes to succeed in a team competition. I am proud to say that on that day we were better than anybody else. But still we are not on our top yet and so we will have to continue the work. SJI: In the past few weeks both in COC and late in FIS cup, seems that Norway leveled up their form. AS: Yes, it is nice to see that the changes I have worked on have gone further than only among those athletes in the National Team. But that is mostly because the coaches on the level of COC and FIS Cup are doing a very good job. They believe in my ideas and things seem to work very well. SJI: What kind of work, you guys of the national team made in the summer to be already so competitive? AS: The highest focus was on two things. On the one hand we worked very hard on the physical sector. The guys did a lot of hard sessions in the gym. On the other side we worked on a slightly different approach concerning the technic on take-off. I must say I was surprised to see that everything has developed so fast. But I still think that we will have some steps back during the season as old habits and mistakes tend to break through every now and then and the physical level is not were it should be yet. Over a long WC season it is difficult to keep the level and as we don't have a lot of power potential yet we will see how we manage. SJI: Saturday result was a big difference from the 8th place in Kuusamo (team) ,what changed in the main time? AS: Not much concerning the jumping, but the athletes were more self confident and not too eager to make a good performance. The main difference was a good focus on what they had to do instead of being distracted by a competition situation with difficult weather conditions. SJI: It looks like the guys approaching to the races in a different way, have you worked also on a new mental approach? AS: Not specifically but I talked to them about how they should work themselves through a competition and use the nearvousness in a positive way as it can give you energy when you know how to deal with it. SJI: Some, of the youngsters looking very promising there will be more chances to see them in the WC throughout of the season? AS: I hope so. It can be a motivation for everybody when new faces show up and the experienced athletes see that it is not clear from the beginning that they join every competition. SJI: Your goals this season are? AS: I think we should be happy if we manage to get two athletes among the top ten in the single competitions and one of them near or on the podium. Further we will try to have as many as possible athletes in the final round of a WC. Overall we want to finish on podium with the team. The Ski Flying World Championships in Vikersund are of course our biggest event this year. We want to make one Medal and perform good with the team. AND the record should stay in the country.

• Consuelo Conte [@KokkaMufc]