SKI JUMPING WORLD CUP. The athletes of head coach Alexander Pointner also won the team competition at the 86th Lahti Ski Games. Gregor Schlierenzauer, Martin Koch, Andreas Kofler and Thomas Morgenstern are simply unbeatable at the moment.

On the Salpausselkae-hill in southern Finland the Austrians won with a total of 1086.0 points ahead of the Norwegians (1065.3 points) Anders Bardal, Johan Remen Evensen, Anders Jacobsen and Tom Hilde, who were second once again.

The Austrians, who was beaten in a team competition for the last time in March 2010 on this hill, only had problems in the first round to keep the lead against Norway. In the final they were clearly the best again.

"I'm very satisfied. It was again a sensational day for the team and I'm happy about that. It was great to jump today with only a little bit of tailwind. I like the hill and I'm looking forward to tomorrow", said Morgenstern, who already looked ahead to the individual competition.

Norway second-best ski jumping team

So Norway finished second, just like at the two team competitions at the World Championships in Oslo. At least the athletes of head coach Mika Kojonkoski have all the right to say that they are the second best ski jumping nation in the world.

"It's always our goal to beat Austria, unfortunately it didn't work again today. I was very satisfied with my first jump, the second one was not that good", said Anders Bardal.

The Polish team finished third with a total of 1028.3 points and with performances like that they don't have to worry about the time after Adam Malysz. He was their best also this time and showed the longest jump of the day with 131.5 m, but the Polish fans could also count on Kamil Stoch, Piotr Zyla and Tomasz Byrt. The third place for the Polish jumpers, who were already on the podium in a team competition in January in Willingen. Right on time for the career end of the great Polish hero they are amont the best.

"It was great to be on the podium with my teammates. Especially after a competition like today when we were fighting until the end. The result was not clear until the last jump, that's what makes this sport exciting and it's fantastic", said a happy Kamil Stoch.

After his performances today and in yesterday's qualification, Severin Freund has to be considered one of the favorites for the victory on Sunday. In the first round he showed the longest jump, like he did in the qualification, and also in the final he did very well. It was probably due to Michael Neumayer's performance that Germany could not stand on the podium. Richard Freitag and Martin Schmitt jumped well - Germany came in fourth (1017.9 points).

Finns also not in shape at home

Slovenia was fifth, but with 999.7 points they were already clear behind the Germans. Peter Prevc was the best of the team of head coach Matjaz Zupan.

A great performance of Matti Hautamaeki was not enough for the Finnish team to achieve a top result in front of their home crowd. Janne Ahonen was the final jumper for Finland in the last team competition of his career but he can just now show very good jumps this season. Hautamaeki was their best, but Ahonen, the young Jarkko Maeaettae and Anssi Koivuranta are too far behind the best of the world right now. So Finland was only sixth. The fans tried their best to cheer on their favorite Janne Ahonen, but he jumped only 115 m in both rounds.

At the beginning of the final round there was a minute of silence for the victims of the Tsunami in Japan. And there's also still the danger of an nuclear disaster. Under these circumstances the Japanese jumpers made a good competition, even if one could tell that they could not forget what's happening at home. Fumihisa Yumoto, Taku Takeuchi, Noriaki Kasai and Daiki Ito finished seventh, ahead of the Czech team.

Only nine teams took part in Lahti and it was more or less clear from the beginning that Estonia would not be able to qualify for the final round. But still the crowd applauded the jumps of Siim-Tanel Sammelselg, Illimar Paern, Kail Piho and Kaarel Nurmsalu.

The individual competition will take place on Sunday at 3:00 pm CET - it will be the last competition of the great Janne Ahonen.

FISskijumping.com
12.03.2011 17:58