SKI JUMPING. What an opening for the 60th 4-Hills-Tournament! It seemed as if even the weather couldn't get enough of ski jumping because the competition in Oberstdorf was 3.5 hours long and had a great final. At the end Gregor Schlierenzauer won and Austria sweeped the podium.

Schlierenzauer won the competition with a great jump in the final round on 137.5 m. "What a day for me. I want to thank the jury for making a decision in favor of the athletes and gave us all a second chance. That was in the sense of the sport. That it then had such a happy ending for me is great and gives me self-confidence for the upcoming competitions", said the winner.

With his total of 283.3 points he had a good lead ahead of second-placed Andreas Kofler (265.2 points), who was the leader after the first round. Kofler had a fantastic jump under good conditions and seemed to soar down the hill. The World Cup leader aborted his jump and could avoid a fall. But he could not win anymore, his teammate Schlierenzauer was too good.

But still, Kofler has his chance in the overall ranking. The 27-year-old is in a great shape and still has six jumps to close up to Schlierenzauer. "Personally I'm very satisfied. For us Austrians it was a great start in the 4-Hills-Tournament and I'm happy it went that well for me."

Three Austrians ahead

With Thomas Morgenstern, the Austrians have another top contestant for the fourth overall victory in a row. The athlete from Carinthia reached a total of 264.3 points and finished third. It was already his fourth podium result this season. "I'm very satisfied, especially with my performance. My jumps are getting better and better, so I'm happy that there were four jumps today. I want to thank the organizing committee because it was not easy today and they did a really good job."

Also the Germans can continue to dream about the big victory because Severin Freund missed the podium by only 0.9 points and still has the chance for a top result at the 60th edition of the 4-Hills. With Stephan Hocke as eighth and Richard Freitag as tenth, two more Germans were in the Top 10.

Good day for Ito

Daiki Ito came in fifth and achieved a top result for Japan. Anders Bardal, after his great performance in the qualification one of the top favorites for the 4-Hills, already lost about 18 points to Kofler in the first round with his jump on 120.5 m. But in the final the strong Norwegian showed the potential he has right now and moved up to sixth. Strong Czech Roman Koudelka was seventh and showed that he is one of the best in the world.

Turbulent day - spectacular competition

After a turbulent start of the competition that was a difficult task for the jury with heavy snowfall and changing winds there was a restart at 6:15 pm CET. In the first try, the favorites Schlierenzauer and Freitag had bad luck and would not have had a chance to win anymore.

At the time of the cancellation Ito was clearly in the lead. He had a great jump on 138 m under headwind conditions. The restart was a good decision of the jury, because after 6:15 pm the conditions really got better and it was a lot fairer. The top jumpers were ahead and also Ito and Slovene Robert Kranjec, who also had a good jump before. Kranjec proved his good shape with the ninth place in front of about 20 500 spectators who got to see a spectacular competition.

Ammann can't achieve overall victory

It's already clear after Oberstdorf that Simon Amman can't win the 4-Hills-Tournament. After he showed his best jump here in Oberstdorf in the first round, he landed already after 120 m in the final and came in 12th, about 50 points behind the leader in the overall ranking. The victory is far away for the Swiss how suffers from a flu.

It went even worse for Tom Hilde. The winner of the qualification showed a very good jump in the final but he fell at the landing and crashed headfirst in the snow with a speed of about 120 km/h. Right now it's not sure whether he will be able to compete in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Bad day for Schmitt

Matti Hautamaeki achieved a good result for Finland as 14th. With Anssi Koivuranta the team of head coach Pekka Niemelae had another athlete in the final. The former nordic combined skier was 21st.

The day in Oberstdorf was a very bad one for Martin Schmitt, who already won in here three times. He finished 46th and the 33-year-old lost the duel against his teammate Markus Eisenbichler.

Also Bjoern Einar Romoeren and Johan Remen Evensen, the ski flying specialists from Norway, did not reach the final round. Both had extremely bad conditions, only Martin Koch from Austria got more bonus points for the tailwind.

Winner from 2009 and record holder only spectators

The fans could also not see record holder Noriaki Kasai who takes part in the 4-Hills for the 21st time and the 4-Hills winner from 2009, Woflgang Loitzl from Austria, jumping in the second round.

Kofler remains in the lead in the overall ranking. With 588 points, he is more than 100 points ahead of Schlierenzauer (476 points), and Bardal (430 points). Morgenstern is fourth, followed by Freitag.

FISskijumping.com
30.12.2011 20:20