Austrian youngster Franz-Josef Rehrl has taken the
win at the Provisional Competition Round in Villach
today. In front of his home crowd, the 21-year old
jumped 95.5 metres which was enough to beat veteran
teammate Christoph Bieler who landed at 93 metres.
Czech Republic’s Tomas Portyk and Yoshito Watabe
from Japan shared rank three with jumps of 93 and
97.5 metres and a total point value of 125.5.
With a total of 129 points, Rehrl will be in the
lead of the pack should the PCR have to be used
in adverse weather conditions tomorrow. Bieler’s
127.8 points would mean a time disadvantage of 5
seconds on Rehrl, Portyk and Watabe will start 14
seconds back. Overall SGP leader Johannes Rydzek
ranked fifth with 124.6 points and 18 seconds of
time behind. The Top Ten is completed by Poland’s
Szczepan Kupczak, Takehiro Watanabe, Bjo"rn
Kircheisen, Lukas Greiderer and Ilkka Herola who
would start within 33 seconds of the leader.
Nordic Combined superstars Jason Lamy Chappuis and
Eric Frenzel ranked 13th (+0:37) and 15th (+0:39)
after a weaker landing by Frenzel. Austria’s Marco
Pichlmayer hit a bad jump and landed at 76.5 metres
already, ranking last in the result list.
As there were just 54 athletes on start, the jury
decided that all participating athletes will be
allowed to start in the competition tomorrow. USA’s
Nicholas Madden was disqualified due to irregular
equipment.