Czech Jakub Janda won the second individual competition
at the FIS Summer Grand Prix in Nizhniy Tagil, Russia.
With jumps on 127 m and 129 m he scored a total
of 268.3 points and won ahead of Slovenia's Jernej
Damjan (264.2 points). Anders Bardal of Norway,
the winner of yesterday's competition, and Poland's
Krzysztof Biegun, second in the GP overall ranking,
shared the third place (259.9 points).
"I'm in a very good shape. I'm very satisfied,
it was a really nice weekend for me with two podium
results. I don't know if I'm back in my best shape.
We will see that in winter. I do the same training
as back in 2005 and 2006 and I feel very strong
now. I don't know if I'll go to Almaty, I have to
talk about that with my coach", said Janda,
who has already announced that this will be his
last World Cup season.
Jernej Damjan was also satisfied with how the weekend
went for him after a seventh and a second place:
"I didn't have a good feeling in the first
three jumps on this hill but then in the competition
I just flew and it was a really great feeling. In
April I was not even in the Slovenian A-team, now
I'm Top 10 in the Summer Grand Prix. I just think
about my jumping and I don't want to have too high
expectations for the winter. I have to work hard
and that's it."
Krzysztof Biegun is now only 50 points behind Andreas
Wellinger in the overall ranking and has a real
chance to win the title: "Right now I'm in
a very good shape. The last days were not so good
for me, but today it went well and I'm very happy
now. My jumps today were both good, although the
second one was a bit worse. I jumped better than
yesterday."
Anders Bardal was satisfied with his performances
this weekend in Nizhniy Tagil: "It was a good
weekend for me. I'm making good progress and I'm
looking forward to continuing the work. We are now
going to Almaty tomorrow and we'll have a training
camp there before the competitions next weekend.
For me personally, the Grand Prix is not that important
because I stay at home more often. The winter is
what counts and this is a good training."
Denis Kornilov as fifth and Dimitry Vassiliev as
ninth achieved good results for the hosting team
of Russia. Antonin Hajek (CZE) failed to qualify
for the final round on Saturday, today he could
score plenty of Grand Prix points as sixth, Reruhi
Shimizu (JPN), confirmed his upward trend as seventh.
With Stefan Hula and Aleksander Zniszczol as eighth
and tenth the Polish jumpers achieved yet another
great team result. While Tom Hilde (NOR) came in
only 11th and could not repeat his good performance
from Saturday when he was on the podium, US American
Nicholas Alexander was able to repeat his very good
14th place.
Martin Schmitt did a lot better on the large hill.
He could not qualify for the final in the normal
hill competition, this time he was the best German
as 15th. His teammate Jan Maylaender presented himself
in good shape in his first Grand Prix competitions
and scored points again this time as 24th.
Davide Bresadola represented Italy in the final
and came in 18th, Pascal Kaelin was the only Swiss
in the second round as 28th.
The next two individual competitions will be held
in Almaty, Kazakhstan next weekend, before the Summer
Grand Prix concludes in Hinzenbach (AUT) and Klingenthal
(GER).