. world ski news : Morgenstern secures Austrian team victory in Hinterzarten - 06 Àâãóñò 2011 - 21:49
SKI JUMPING. The Austrians won the team competition in Hinterzarten also without Gregor Schlierenzauer, Wolfgang Loitzl and Martin Koch. On the "Adlerschanze", the Austrian team captured the victory with dominator Thomas Morgenstern, Michael Hayboeck, Manuel Fettner and Andreas Kofler.
Poland was in the lead after the first round, but in the final the best ski jumping team took the top spot again. Austria won with a total of 1011.3 points ahead of Poland and celebrated the second victory in this summer's second team competition.
Poland competitive without Adam Malysz
But still: The second place is a great result for the Polish team. The athletes of head coach Lukasz Kruczek are still competitive, even without Adam Malysz. Piotr Zyla and Kamil Stoch showed great jumps, Dawid Kubacki and Maciej Kot were consistent and can be happy with the second place (995.8 points), even if more seemed possible after the first round.
Thanks to an outstanding Tom Hilde, who was in the hospital a couple of days ago after he fell in training, the Norwegians captured the third place with the final jump. Johan Remen Evensen, Kenneth Gangnes and Rune Velta jumped well and so Norway came in third with 975.0 points.
Germany, without the injured Martin Schmitt, were only partly in a good shape in front of their home crowed. Especially Andreas Wank, who clearly won his group and was among the best on Saturday, will be able to fight for the victory in the individual competition, Richard Freitag could improve in the second round, Severin Freund, who is struggeling with back problems, and Maximilian Mechler missed the podium and were fourth.
The Czech Republic was fifth. Roman Koudelka showed a strong performance, Lukas Hlava was once again very consistent. Russia finished sixth. The Japanese, who were still competing without last year's overall winner Daiki Ito, were seventh.
Judez disqualified - Slovenia not in the final
Slovene Dejan Judez was disqualified because his suit was to big and with the results of only three athletes counting the Slovenian team could not qualify for the final round. The same fate was shared by Kazakhstan.
So the US team surprisingly reached the second round. All four of them failed to make the cut for Sunday's individual competition, but due to the mishap of Slovenia they could qualify for the final round and finished eighth.
The individual competition in Hinterzarten will take place on Sunday at 2:00 pm CET.
FISskijumping.com
06.08.2011 20:50