Freund wins, Fannemel re-writes history in a two-faces race

ski-jumping-italy
Feb 15, 2015
2 min read

A terrible dinner with an exquisite dessert: this phrase synthesizes the second Vikersund competition.

A terrible dinner with an exquisite dessert: this phrase synthesizes the second Vikersund competition. Severin Freund takes the win and the new German record (245m), Anders Fannemel establishes the new world record (251.5m) and a surprising Johann Andre Forfang closes the podium. The first round of the race was conditioned by extremely low inrun speed. After Dimitry Vassiliev's 254m crashed jump in qualification, the race direction decided to start the race from gate 7. The wind didn't justify the choice and the result was an embarassing first part of the race, with many athletes under 140m and ridicolously low scores (for example, Simon Greiderer qualified 30th for the final round with 126m). The race should have probably been stopped after the first five or six jumps and restarted from an adequate starting gate, but the jury didn't seem to agree, so the public had to watch that awful show; the second round was not more decent: gate 8 despite very light front wind or even tail wind for the first athletes before everything changed. One thing is sure: the race direction has an original vision of the F-value system. A top level performance brought Freund to the win; the German took advantage of World Cup leader Peter Prevc's debacle (16th with a 110m second jump) to close on him in the overall standings. Fannemel led the first round, but couldn't cope with Freund in the second one: 202m and second place for the Norwegian, definitely the "Man of the Weekend". Forfang turned out to be a great flyer and his feeling with the Vikersund venue led him to an incredible podium. Rune Velta completed the Norwegian trio in fourth place, just ahead of Noriaki Kasai: the legendary "Jap" established the new national record with 240.5m in the second jump, earning a well deserved fifth place finish after an exceptional comeback. The German-speaking trio of Michael Neumayer, Manuel Poppinger and Markus Eisenbichler occupies the positions from sixth to eighth ahead of Jurij Tepes and the fourth hometown hero, Andreas Stjernen, who closes the top-10. Daiki Ito is second among the Japanese jumpers with his 11th place finish, ahead of Nejc Dezman and a very solid Shohei Tochimoto. Marinus Kraus and Piotr Zyla complete the top-15 followed by the great delusion of the day, Peter Prevc, still WC leader, but WR holder just for one day. Edoardo Vercellesi (Twitter: @edoverce97)