SKI JUMPING. Martin Koch ended the winning streak of Daiki Ito and won the prestigious competition on the Holmenkollen Oslo. The Austrian achieved his fourth World Cup victory under difficult conditions above the Oslofjord. But it was his first win in ski jumping - so far he only won ski flying competitions.

It would have been the fifth win for Daiki Ito, but the leader after the first round finished fourth overall. So Germany's Severin Freund and Robert Kranjec of Slovenia stood on the podium. Koch reached a total of 247.3 points, Freund 238.9 points and Kranjec 238.0 points. Ito missed the podium by only 0.3 points.

"It was a windy competition and that's always difficult. You never know what happens, but my shape is on a great level. It was my first win on a large hill and I've been waiting a long time for this. Now I'm really happy that it happened on the Holmenkollen", said the winner.

"I was already good in summer, but it's always difficult to be strong in the winter as well. That was a challenge for me and I'm satisfied with this season. We won the silver medal at the World Championships in Vikersund and I guess nobody expectet this. We have a new coach now for a few years and we are working hard and it's getting better and better", said Freund

Kranjec tired but happy

Kranjec is of course happy that he won the title in Vikersund, but now he's tired because of all the stress afterwards. "It is very nice to be ski flying World Champion, but I was very tired because I had no time to recharge my batteries. I'm satisfied with the third place. It was windy today, but when you sit on he bar you just have to focus on your jump", said the Slovenian champion.

No chance for Schlierenzauer and Morgenstern

Once again it was a windy day in Oslo. Jaka Hvala, the young Slovene who jumped with bib 8, had very good conditions in the first round, just like Poland's Piotr Zyla. But many top atheltes had problems. Thomas Morgenstern could not qualify for the final round, Gregor Schlierenzauer was only 27th after the first round, Andreas Kofler 20th.

Hvala and Zyla then lost some places in the final. But the eighth place was still a huge success for Hvala, and the seventh is a very good result for Zyla.

Famous names not in the final

Anders Fannemel, Vegard Haukoe Sklett, Taku Takeuchi and all three Finns could not make the cut for the second round. No World Cup points for the team of head coach Pekka Niemelae. Also David Zauner and Manuel Fettner could not score points - Czech Lukas Hlava and his teammate Roman Koudelka shared the same fate.

But the best could show top performances despite the difficult conditions. Simon Ammann was fifth, Richard Freitag sixth, Kofler moved up to ninth with a great jump in the final round.

Bardal has a good chance to be the third Norwegian overall winner

The fight for the overall World Cup seems to be almost over with only two more individual competitions left this season. Schlierenzauer finished 16th today. Bardal did also not achieve a top result but as tenth he was better than Schlierenzauer again and further extended his lead.

Bardal now has a total of 1295 points and a lead of 123 points ahead of Schlierenzauer (1172 points). Third is Kofler (1127 points), Ito follows as fourth (1066 points).

FISskijumping.com
11.03.2012 16:10