SKI JUMPING WORLD CUP. The favorites from Austria won the team competition at the opening of the 3rd FIS Team Tour in Willingen. With Gregor Schlierenzauer, Martin Koch, Andreas Kofler and Thomas Morgenstern, without team Olympic Champion Wolfgang Loitzl, they won with a total of 1071.8 points and have the best chances to win the 100 000 Euro extra prize money for the overall winner of the Team Tour.

The German team finished on a very good second place with 1025.1 points. Especially because of the great performance of Severin Freund who was their best this afternoon. Poland came in third. "Team competitions are always nice because it's fun to jump together with the guys", said Freund in front of the great audience in Willingen. Besides Morgenstern and Kamil Stoch the 22-year-old is one of the favorites for Sunday's competition. "Although I experienced it many times already, it's always a great feeling to jump in front of this crowd", Michael Uhrmann said about the atmosphere at the hill.

Malysz and Stoch very strong for Poland

It was a fantastic competition for the Polish team. Adam Malysz took part again only six days after the fall in Zakopane and showed good jumps on 136 m and 134.5 m. But their best was Kamil Stoch, who celebrated his first victory in Zakopane. The third place is a great result for the team of head coach Lukasz Kruczek. Piotr Zyla and Stefan Hula also showed a very good performance and with Malysz and Stoch they even have chances to win the FIS Team Tour.

Norway landed only on a disappointing fourth place. Especially after the very good jumps in the qualification today's result is not enough for the athletes of Mika Kojonkoski. But the jumpers from Austria, Germany and Poland were very good today and they only missed the podium by about five points.

Good comeback of Happonen

The comeback of Janne Happonen was the highlight for the Finnish team. He made great jumps far over 130 m. It's good news for head coach Pekka Niemelae that the 26-year-old, who won three World Cup competitions so far, is already in such a good shape again. The Finns are still looking for strong jumpers for the World Championships. They can count on Matti Hautamaeki, and obviously also on Janne Happonen. Anssi Koivuranta did not show top performances today. The Finnish team was fifth today, only 0.1 points ahead of the Japanese.

The Slovenian team, with Jernej Damjan showing a very good performance, finished seventh, followed by the Czech Republic.

Good World Cup debut for Bresadola

It was not a good day for the Russians. Especially Roman Trofimov, who jumped only on 109.5 m, showed a disappointing performance. Dimitri Vassiliev, Denis Kornilov and Pavel Karelin jumped over 120 m but at the end they were only tenth.

The Italians, with 22-year-old Davide Bresadola who was second best of his team, were better than Russia but still it was not enough to make the cut for the final round of the best eight teams. For Bresadola it was a good debut in the World Cup with a jump on 123 m. His only appearance for the Italian team so far was the team competition at the Olympic Games in Torino 2006.

FISskijumping.com
29.01.2011 18:10