Phillip Sjoeen also won the second FIS Grand Prix
competition in Hakuba (JPN). Daniel-Andre Tande
completed the Norwegian double victory in second.
Slovenia's Jernej Damjan came in third.
“A dream came true for me here. It means a lot to
me that I was jumping on this level over the past
weeks and having my teammate Daniel here makes it
complete. It's a great feeling to wear the yellow
bib now. The winter is still far away, but I want
to compete in the 4-Hills-Tournament and the World
Championships.”
Clear lead
Only 16 hours after his first win in the Grand Prix,
18-year-old Sjoeen was unbeatable. Jumps on 129
m and 134 m (263.5 points) earned him a clear lead
over his teammate Tande, who followed in second
with 129 m and 135 m and 249.2 points. Sjoeen started
from a lower gate in both rounds. “Of course I'm
satisfied”, Tande said. “The second jump was awesome.
I had to feeling that it would go too far, so I
just tried to get down and land.”
Damjan, second on the day before, came in only 0.3
points behind Tande this time. The Slovene achieved
his second podium result this weekend with 128 m
and 131.5 m. Jernej Damjan told: “I'm really happy.
Yesterday I was joking that I want to be third.
It happened and now I have the whole set of medals
from Hakuba. The Norwegians were very strong. My
jumps were not perfect, and these two were great.”
Japanese miss the podium again
Taku Takeuchi repeated his second place from Saturday's
competition, only 1.1 points behind Damjan. But
still he showed a very good performance with jumps
on 127.5 m and 131 m. Matjaz Pungertar improved
Saturday's result and finished fifth. But with two
jumps on 125.5 m he was not that close to the best.
Junshiro Kobayashi (237.8 points) in sixth, Shohei
Tochimoto (230.3 points) in ninth and Reruhi Shimizu
(227.6 points) In tenth achieved a strong team result
for Japan. Veteran Noriaki Kasai was only 26th this
time. With 233.8 points Michael Neumayer was the
best German in seventh, his teammates Daniel Wenig,
Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler came in on the
places 15 to 17.
Deschwanden stronger
Gregor Deschwanden significantly improved his 21st
place from Saturday's competition and was eighth
with 230.9 points. Jakub Wolny was once again the
best of the Polish athletes, this time in eleventh,
close ahead of Finland's Sami Niemi.
Positive for the Russian team: With Vladislav Boyarintsev,
Denis Kornilov and Mikhail Maksimochkin in 21st,
22nd and 24th, three athletes qualified for the
final round. The same applies for the Czech team,
for which Lukas Hlava, Cestmir Kozisek and Martin
Cikl came in 28th, 29th and 30th.
Sjoeen wears "Yellow"
After his outstanding weekend in Hakuba, Phillip
Sjoeen now leads in the overall ranking of the Grand
Prix. With a total of 293 points he now has a lead
of 95 points ahead of Daniel-Andre Tande and Jernej
Damjan.
The FIS Grand Prix continues on September 20th in
Almaty, Kazakhstan. Then the series will conclude
with the events in Hinzenbach (AUT) and Klingenthal
(GER).
