Janda Gets Rare Ski-Jump Win for Czechs

TITISEE-NEUSTADT, Germany - Jakub Janda won a ski jump on a large hill Sunday, the first World Cup victory in the sport in 10 years for the Czech Republic.

Runaway World Cup leader Janne Ahonen of Finland was seventh, the first time this season he did not finish among the top three. Adam Malysz of Poland was second and Risto Jussilainen of Finland was third.

Janda nailed two jumps of 134 meters each and was comfortably ahead of Malysz, becoming the first Czech ski jumper to win on the circuit since Jaroslav Sakala in 1994.

Janda totaled 266.4 points while Malysz was at 254.4 for jumps of 131 and 132 meters. Jussilainen recorded jumps of 128.5 and 132.5 meters for 251.3 points.

Ahonen made jumps of 127.5 and 131 meters and earned 246.8 points. On Saturday, he won for the 12th time this season, a World Cup record. In 15 starts, Ahonen has 12 wins, two second places and a seventh

AP, Sun Jan 23, 2005, 11:43 AM ET

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Germans Dominate World Cup Freestyle

PRAGELATO, Italy - German teams won men's and women's sprint finals Sunday in a World Cup cross-country ski meet on a course that will be used at the Turin Olympics.

Jens Filbrich and Axel Teichmann captured the men's 9-kilometer race and Viola Bauer and Claudia Kuenzel won the women's 6.6-kilometer final.

Teichmann, the overall World Cup leader, and his teammates were timed in 19 minutes, 10.4 seconds, edging the Swedish team of Thobias Fredriksson and Bjoern Lind by 2.1 seconds. Another German pair, Rene Sommerfeldt and Andreas Schluetter, placed third, 2.8 seconds back.

Bauer and Kuenzel teamed for a time of 18:37.9 to finish 1.9 seconds ahead of Emelie Oehrstig and Anna Dahlberg of Sweden. Aino Kaisa Saarinen and Pirjo Manninen of Finland placed third, 2.4 seconds back.

The team sprints did not award points for individual World Cup standings.

AP, Sun Jan 23, 2005, 11:27 AM ET

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Back to business for Ahonen

It was business as usual for Janne Ahonen with the Finn returning from illness to win at Titisee-Neustadt ahead of Jakub Janda and Thomas Morgenstern. The World Cup standings leader cleared up with jumps of 142m and 138m, finishing with 283.5 points, two points clear of his Czech rival.

The Finn's first-round 142m effort was the afternoon's most generous leap, but as we have seen so often this season, Ahonen's style on the strip left a lot to be desired.

A full three-metres to the better of Austria's Thomas Morgenstern, our man from Finland could only manage second-place, a narrow 0.1 points behind the Austrian whose jump was comparative poetry in motion.

Ahonen, on the other hand, came to earth with a bang, and needed to steady himself with his left ski before being entirely sure of his landing. Far from classic poetry, it was more a lengthy novel with a dodgy ending...

The second round also saw Ahonen struggle to achieve fluidity on impact, but his 138m ramshackle - half a click short of Janda's - was enough to propel him into the hot-seat.

Morgenstern was the last athlete who could stop him, but his disappointing 134m jump could only ensure a podium bronze berth, behind the Finn and Janda.

Adam Malysz of Poland - winner last week at Bad Mitterndorf - could only muster up seventh, while Martin Hoellwarth of Austria finished fourth, surrendering his second-place in the overall World Cup standings to Janda.

POINTS LANDMARK

It says a huge amount for Ahonen's dominance in the sport that he can breeze to a win on a day when both his efforts, though large, were far from perfect.

But that is part of Ahonen's game; his supreme length will always put him in with more than a healthy shout of winning the proceedings, even if his landings are both invariably shaky and, to be honest, rather dangerous.

Ahonen leads the overall World Cup table with a staggering 1360 points, with Janda and Hoellwarth fighting it out neck-and-neck on 826 and 806 respectively.

With twelve individual events still to be decided, the Finn has already surpassed his bountiful total of 1316 points that won him the World Cup last year, while he has three-points to the better of Adam Malysz's 2002/3 winning total.

The figures speak for themselves. What ski-jumping fans - and may I say, I was impressed with the female turnout on the slopes of Titesee - are witnessing is nothing shorter than astonishing.

The Finn could reach two thousand points in one season if he carries on at this rate! Already 12 wins out of 16 - with a two-meeting enforced flu absence - Ahonen only needs six more wins to ensure that landmark.

He is enjoying Lance Armstrong, Michael Schumacher, Manchester United in the 90s status...

And long may that continue!

But one thing Janne... Watch those landings! We don't want you to join Alexander Herr on the sidelines...

Not even injury will make Ahonen part of his World Cup crown now, though.

Eurosport - Felix Lowe 22/01/05

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Bauer sprints to victory

Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic expertly sprinted clear of Sweden's Mathias Fredriksson to take the men's 2 x 15 km double pursuit at Pragelato. Bauer finished with a time of 1:22:57.9, over one minute and twenty seconds clear of WC overall standings leader Axel Teichmann, back in 11th.

Bauer broke with a kilometre to go, and only his Swedish opponent could hold on from the leading five-strong pack.

At one point it looked like the Czech had timed his break badly, with Fredriksson seemingly sprinting definitively clear on the finishing stages.

But Bauer's inner strength shone through as he found a late surge to pip the Swede at the post, edging him out by 0.4 seconds.

Fredriksson was irate, but it was only through a miraculous comeback of his own that he saw himself competing for the Piedmontese laurels in the first place.

At the pit-stop after the first three 5 km laps the Swede was languishing a massive 46 seconds back in seventh place.

The man who led the field at this stage was Estonia's Andrus Veerpalu, who powered clear of the field in the latter stages of the third lap to set up a staggering 18 second lead from out of the blue.

The Estonian was caught once the large climbs of the second 15km leg started, and soon a select core of five skiers formed at the front, featuring Kristen Skjeldal of Norway and Tobias Angerer of Germany, as well as Veerpalu, Bauer and Frederiksson.

Most impressive, however, was the performance of Italian club-house journeyman Thomas Moriggl who, starting with bib No. 59 out of 60 skied his way up to finish eighth, just 38.9 seconds off the pace.

Whether the Italian gets the nod to compete for his nation on this same high-altitude course in the Olympics next year remains to be seen, but on evidence of this compelling display it should be a certainty.

Moriggl even finished two places in front of current World Cup standings topper Axel Teichmann, who had a shocker in eleventh, one minute twenty-four back.

But the day belonged to Bauer, who timed his jugular attack on the final climb with aplomb.

It was a risky affair, given the fact that there was still almost a kilometre to race, but Bauer's probably noticed that Angerer's skis were particularly fast on the flat.

Were it to come to a final five-way sprint, Angerer was sure to prevail. But by attacking when his rivals least expected it, Bauer managed to blow away all bar Fredriksson in this wake.

The Swede is not renowned for his sprinting skills, and had the Italian spectators dumbstruck when he seemed to pace clear of Bauer on the final approach.

But the man from the Czech Republic had different ideas, and vindicated his zingy attack by pegging back Frederiksson with just metres to spare.

Eurosport - Felix Lowe 22/01/2005

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Steira storms to maiden victory

Norway's Kristina Steira Stoermer sealed her maiden World Cup victory with a win over Katerina Neummanova in the women's 2 x 7.5 km double pursuit in Pragelato on Saturday, completing the course in a time of 42:56.5, 1.3 seconds to the better of her veteran from the Czech Republic.

Neummanova set the early pace, leading throughout the initial three 2.5 km laps before the pit stop.

Yet the 23-year old Norwegian, along with Germany's Claudia Kuenzel, kept in touch, lying in the slipstream of the pace-setter.

After the first lap of the second leg, once the larger climbs had begun, Neummanova changed her tactics. Realising that she had led from the start, but to no apparent avail, the Czech skier allowed Steira to take the reins and lead proceedings.

It turned into a fascinating race in what was effectively a dress rehearsal for the Olympic games in 2006. This course at Pragelato will feature at Torino, give or take a little tweaking and some honed changes, which certainly added extra spice to the events.

With Kuenzel distanced by the two fore-runners, Stiera - both a racer and a young professional woman with a University marketing degree - began to believe in her chances of netting that elusive, all-important World Cup victory, hitherto lacking on her nevertheless impressive CV.

And yet the 23-year-old's slight frame made it look hard in the heavy wind in the Italian resort. What is more, the high altitude at Pragelato - the limit for legal racing - made things even more diffucult for the competitors.

But Stiera held on, out-sprinting Neummanova in the final stretch to grab a memorable victory, just a month on from her second-place at Ramsau before the xmas holidays.

With her second-place, Katerina Neummanova - winner last week in Nove Mesto - almost moved up to second in the overall standings, and now stands just five points off Kristina Smigun of Estonia who chose not to race today.

Another forfeit was overall standings topper Marit Bjoergen of Norway, who was no doubt pleased to see her compatriot Steira win today: not only for compassionate support of her team-mate, but for the fact that her stealthy cushion at the top remained untarnished by her main rivals.

Kuenzel came across the finish line in third, 7.9 seconds off the pace, while Italy's Gabriella Paruzzi finished in fourth, 34.9 seconds back.

It was a bad day for Julia Tchepalova of Russia who suffered on the first 7.5 km leg with apparent ski problems, probably due to the choice of wax.

The Russian was uncharacteristically way back in 25th place at the pit-stop, but managed to record the best second leg time to finish in an eventual fifth place, 42.4 seconds in arrears.

Eurosport - Felix Lowe 22/01/2005