SKI JUMPING. Even the heavy rain could not stop Adam Malysz in Hinterzarten. The Pole won great jumps of 103.5 m and 107 m and a total of 265.6 points, close ahead of Thomas Morgenstern (261.8 points), who could also show two very good jumps. Kalle Keituri from Finland surprised as third with 250.7 points.
 
"This was my 15th competition here in Hinterzarten. I'm very optimistic after this victory. Last year Simon Ammann won here and then he had a great summer and winter", Malysz said after the competition.
 
Taku Takeuchi as fourth was the best of the strong Japanese team. With Daiki Ito (6th), Shohei Tochimoto (12th) and Fumihisa Yumoto (13th) the had four athletes in the Top 15.
 
Another strong performance of the Polish team

Also the Poles achieved that. A day after their victory in the team competition Dawid Kubacki - winner of the qualification on Friday - landed on a shared fourth place with Ito and Simon Ammann from Switzerland, Maciej Kot (10th) was the third Pole in the Top 10 and Stefan Hula completed the top result of the team of head coach Lukasz Kruczek as eleventh.
 
Best of the German team was Michael Uhrmann as fifth. With Severin Freund (9th) a second German finished among the best ten in front of the home crowd, that held out in the heavy rain.
 
Surprising results of Zhaparov and Zografski

It was a great competition for Vladimir Zografski from Bulgaria and Radik Zhaparov from Kazakhstan who finished 17th and 19th, ahead of athletes like Noriaki Kasai (23rd), Michael Neumayer (24th) and David Zauner (26th). Under the new coach Alex Sviatov the Russion team presented itself in a good shape. With Denis Kornilov (15th) and Pavel Karelin (25th) two Russian jumpers reached the final.
 
Georg Spaeth clearly missed the cut for the final round with a jump of 93 m. "I'm very disappointed. That was the worst jump I had here. But all in all I think I'm on a good path", he told.
 
Many stars not in the final round

But Spaeth had good company: World Champion Andreas Kuettel (SUI) and the Olympic medalists Johan Remen Evensen from Norway and Germany's Andreas Wank could not qualify, just like Harri Olli and Janne Ahonen. Many established athletes missed the cut for the Top 30, but that can be considered normal at the first competition of the FIS Summer GP. Russian Dimitri Ipatov did not pass the equipment control - he was disqualified because his suit was too large.

FISskijumping.com
Created at: 08.08.2010 15:54

Polish team in great shape

What a performance of the Polish team! After Dawid Kubacki won the qualification for the individual competition on Sunday the Polish team won the traditional opening event of this summer's FIS GP in Hinterzarten. Maciej Kot, Dawid Kubacki, Krzysztof Mietus and the great Adam Malysz showed an impressive performance in the team competition. With 1001.7 points they clearly won ahead of Norway (Bjoern Einar Romoeren, Johan Remen Evensen, Anders Jacobsen, Tom Hilde) with 966.2 points and Germany (957.7 points).
 
Of course Malysz was happy about the victory and the performance of his young teammates, who head coach Lukasz Kruczek got in a great shape early in the season: "I do well here. I already tried the new bindings in Planica. At first I had problems, but in training it started to get better and better. I jump with skis that are 7 cm shorter than they would have to be. The young jumpers are very strong now. They had a different program and that pays off", the Olympic silver medalist said.
 
It went pretty well for the German team, also without Martin Schmitt. Michael Neumayer, Andreas Wank, Severin Freund and Michael Uhrmann achieved a podium result, even if it was close with only 0.4 points ahead of Japan. "I made about 50 to 100 jumps less than my teammates so far", said Neumayer, who focuses more on his studies in summer, just like in the past years. That's also the reason why Neumayer will not take part in Wisla. Finland finished fifth with Janne Ahonen, who was already competing again only a couple of weeks after his knee surgery.
 
The Austrian B-team with Andreas Strolz, David Zauner, David Unterberger and Thomas Morgenstern could not fight for the top ranks in this competition, also because of a bad jump of Morgenstern in the first round. In the final Morgenstern then showed his potential with 103 m. At the end the team was sixth. The Czech Republic came in seventh, followed by Russia.
 
It was a pretty close competition and the differences in points were not very high since it was held on a normal hill. It was a disappointing start in the FIS GP for the Slovenian jumpers, after they achieved good results in the Continental Cup this summer. Today they could not qualify for the second round.
 
Ammann experimenting with ski length

As expected also the Swiss team missed the final. All for athletes, including Simon Ammann, could not show good jumps. Ammann did not take part in the qualification on Friday. "I could do some more physical training", he told. But on Saturday he could not help his team to reach the Top 8. "Last year Simon jumped with his maximum ski length of 2.53 m", head coach Martin Kuenzle told the Swiss newspaper "Blick". "With his height of 1.73 m he would only be allowed to jump a 2.51 m long ski this season."
 
Right now Ammann tries to jump with skis of different lengths. According to "Blick" the Olympic champion used the old bindings on Saturday. It is reported that the Swiss company Medartis is already working on the "second generation" of his new system.

FISskijumping.com
Created at: 07.08.2010 19:54