The Polish team celebrated a home victory in the
first team competition of the season at the FIS
Grand Prix in Wisla.
With 1061.5 points, double Olympic Champion Kamil
Stoch, Piotr Zyla, Maciej Kot and Dawid Kubacki
took a clear win ahead of the Czech Republic and
the Austrians. Team Olympic Champion Germany came
in fifth, Norway was fourth.
The outstanding jumper of the local heroes was Kamil
Stoch with jumps on 133 m and 130.5 m. Also Piotr
Zyla, who already showed a strong performance on
Thursday, when he was third in the qualification
for the individual competition, jumped very well
with 128.5 m and 131.5 m. Together with Maciej Kot
(129 m and 129.5 m) and Dawid Kubacki (125 m and
124.5 m) they had a lead of 45.4 points over the
Czech team.
Koudelka leads Czech to the podium
Roman Koudelka was the strongest jumper of the Czech
team this evening. He posted jumps on 130.5 m and
128.5 m. Veteran Jakub Janda jumped on 127.5 m and
125.5 m, Lukas Hlava (120.5 m; 124 m) and Antonin
Hajek (124.5 m; 125 m) also had good jumps and so
they achieved a strong second place.
The Austrinas couldn't reach the 130 m mark, but
they showed a very consistent performance. Michael
Hayboeck (127 m; 124.5 m), Stefan Kraft (125 m;
127.5 m), 4-Hills-Tournament winner Thomas Diethart
(126 m; 122.5 m) and World Cup record winner Gregor
Schlierenzauer (127.5 m; 124.5 m) were second after
the first round. At the end they missed the second
place by only 3.6 points or a 130 m jump.
Fannemel's second jump cost the podium
Anders Fannemel's final jump cost the podium result
for the Norwegian athletes, who were jumping so
strong so far in Wisla. Fannemel, who was second
in the qualification on Thursday, had a good first
jump on 129 m but landed already at 120 m in the
final. In absence of Anders Bardal, Phillip Sjoeen
(129 m; 130 m), Andreas Stjernen (126.5 m; 131.5
m) and Rune Velta (126 m; 129 m) showed a good performance
and so the team finished fourth with 1006.1 points.
The team Olympic Champions of Germany could not
show their best performance in Wisla. Andreas Wank
(125 m; 125 m), Richard Freitag (124 m; 122 m),
Andreas Wellinger (129.5 m; 130 m) and especially
Severin Freund (124.5 m; 122.5 m) were not in their
best shape that early in the season and reached
a total of 1004.5 points.
Only Prevc strong
But still Germany came in 34.1 points ahead of Slovenia.
Peter Prevc was the only jumper of the team who
could show a good performance with his jumps on
131 m and 135.5 m (the longest jump of the day).
Jurij Tepes, Robert Kranjec and Matjaz Pungertar
could not meet the expectations.
The teams of Japan (884.9 points) and Switzerland
(865.8 points) could at least qualify for the final
round, for Russia and South Korea the competition
was already over after the first round.
The individual competition at 5:00 pm CET on Saturday
will conclude the Grand Prix in Wisla.