The Austrian team took a clear win in the final
team competition of this World Cup season on the
large hill in Planica. Stefan Kraft, Andreas Kofler,
Thomas Diethart and Gregor Schlierenzauer scored
a total of 1045.6 points and won ahead of Poland
and Norway.
Team Olympic Champion Germany finished fourth. Especially
Andreas Kofler, who jumped on 135.5 m and 131 m,
and Stefan Kraft, with his jumps on 135 m and 133.5
m, were responsible for the Austrian success today.
Gregor Schlierenzauer then secured the win with
his final jump on 136 m.
Zyla sets hill record
The foundation for the Polish podium result
was laid by Piotr Zyla in the first round. He set
a new hill record with 141 m. Zyla, Maciej Kot,
Klemens Muranka and overall World Cup winner Kamil
Stoch scored 1007.6 points and came in only 0.3
points ahead of Norway. Andreas Stjernen, Anders
Fannemel, Tom Hilde and Anders Bardal showed a consistent
performances, with Tom Hilde's 138.5 in the first
round being the outstanding jump. Anders Bardal
secured the podium for his team with strong jumps
on 131 m and 132.5 m.
The German team, with Andreas Wank, Marinus Kraus,
Richard Freitag and Severin Freund could almost
celebrate a new hill record by Kraus. But the 23-year-old
touched the snow with his hands at the landing at
141.5 m. With 1001.5 points Germany missed the podium
by 5.8 points in this competition. Slovenia, with
Peter Prevc, Cene Prevc, Nejc Dezman and Robert
Kranjec, lost the chance to achieve a better result
today due to a not so good performance of Kranjec,
who jumped only on 126 m and 124 m.
Compared to the Olympics, where they won bronze,
Japan had to replace Daiki Ito and Taku Takeuchi
in today's competition. Especially Kento Sakuyama,
who earned his spot on the World Cup team with good
performances in the FIS Cup, had some problems today.
The Czech could have achieved a better result, but
Roman Koudelka had a bad jump in the final and so
they finished only seventh, ahead of Switzerland.
For the Swiss the qualification for the final round
was a success. Finland, Russia and Italy couldn't
qualify for the final round of the Top 8 teams.
The qualification for the final World Cup competition
of the season will start on Sunday at 9:00 am. The
competition follows at 10:30 am.