Everything remains the same, also in the Far East: The Norwegians are almost unbeatable in qualifications. Vegard Haukoe Sklett, who is establishing himself among the world's best this winter, was the best on the Okura-hill in Sapporo. The 25-year-old jumped on 137 m and reached 127.3 points.
With this performance Sklett won clearly ahead of local hero Taku Takeuchi from Japan who showed a 128.5 m jump that earned him 122.5 points. Andreas Stjernen and Rune Velta completed the very good result for the Norwegian team as third and seventh.
Michael Neumayer was fourth and showed a promising performance for the German team. Czech Lukas Hlava finished fifth.
Kasai not the oldest in the field anymore
Of the pre-qualified athletes, Thomas Morgenstern showed that he is one of the top contestants for the victory with a jump on 134 m. Also Daiki Ito, the Japanese hope, showed a great performance with 132 m. World Cup leader Andreas Kofler proved that he is the one to beat if you want to win. In the qualification round he was not among the best.
Severin Freund, who was first and secod here last year, was still having some problems today. Richard Freitag didn't jump bad, but still has room for improvement. Noriaki Kasai will not be the oldest competitor in Sapporo. Takanobu Okabe, who easily qualified as 24th, is 41 years old, Kasai "only" 39.
Only nine jumpers out
Only nine jumpers could not qualify for the competition so it was a surprise that Stefan Hula from Poland and Shohei Tochimoto (JPN) failed to make the cut.
Czech Jakub Janda was close, but he managed to qualify. If he wants to score World Cup points here he will have to improve. The competition on Saturday starts at 8:30 am CET. Of course you can follow it via the Live-Ticker on FISskijumping.com.
| 01 | Wasek, P. |  |
329 | 0 |
| 02 | Kraft, S. | |
305 | 0 |
| 03 | Lindvik, M. | |
300 | 2 |
| 04 | Insam, A. | |
299 | 1 |
| 05 | Hoerl, J. | |
249 | 1 |
| Sluttresultat » | ||||
| 01 | Malsiner, L. | |
254 | 0 |
| 02 | Sieff, A. | |
214 | 0 |
| 03 | Takanashi, S. | |
209 | 1 |
| Sluttresultat » | ||||
| 01 | Japan | |
872 | 0 |
| 02 | Italia | |
628 | 0 |
| 03 | Slovenia | |
605 | 0 |
| Sluttresultat » | ||||
| 01 | Aigner, C. | |
543 | 0 |
| 02 | Fettner, M. | |
405 | 2 |
| 03 | Villumstadt, F. | |
377 | 0 |
| Sluttresultat » | ||||
| 01 | Schmid, K. | |
300 | 0 |
| 02 | Arnet, S. | |
289 | 0 |
| 03 | Wadsak, M. | |
277 | 0 |
| Sluttresultat » | ||||
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