The first day of the new season already offered a real highlight for the ski jumping fans: the mixed team competition made its World Cup premiere on the normal hill of Lillehammer. The new format, in which a team is represented by two male and two female jumpers, has already been tested in summer and proved to be a great success among athletes and spectators alike.
Like in qualification, the weather god did not show mercy on the jumpers. The pouring rain and heavy gusts of wind once again did not make it easy to provide ideal and fair conditions for the competition which admittedly is an important first World Cup experience in light of the upcoming World Championships in Val di Fiemme.
In an extremely exciting competition, the Norwegians celebrated a well deserved team success. Maren Lundby, Tom Hilde, Anette Sagen and Anders Bardal showed their best jumps in front of the home crowd, collected 983.1 points and won with a 17.1 point margin ahead of Team Japan. The victory seemed to be in danger when Anette Sagen lost her balance at landing and could not stand her jump, but Anders Bardal saved the day and secured the first place with a strong second jump. "Winning the first competition of the season at home in Norway means that this was a perfect day. Everyone of our team was performing on a high level, so we were able to show eight good jumps", said Tom Hilde after the competition.
The Japanese (Yuki Ito, Yuta Watase, Sara Takanashi and Taku Takeuchi) proved that they are a team to be reckoned with this season. With Yuki Ito showing somewhat weaker jumps, the athletes delivered consistently high level performances this afternoon and took 2nd place with 966 points. Also Sara Takanashi was happy with her jumps: "Today the conditions were difficult but I managed to show two good jumps. I am very happy right now and I am looking forward to tomorrow's individual competition."
Sensational third place for Italy
Tom Hilde, Anette Sagen, Maren Lundby, Anders Bardal
What a day for Italy: the team made up of Elena Runggaldier, Andrea Morassi, Evelyn Insam and Sebastian Colloredo grabbed the last spot on the podium with a total of 899 points. As the team set their eyes on a medal in Val di Fiemme, this is just an excellent start. Evelyn Insam delivered an outstanding performance with jumps of 101.5 and 102.5 meters, but in the end the hero of the team was certainly Sebastian Colloredo, who kept the team on third place despite his fall. Elena Runggaldier is obviously very happy with the third place: “This result is incredible. Although the conditions weren't that good, we had a really good start into the competition. If we are able to go on like this, the season will be amazing!", she told the press after the event.
The Germans (Ulrike Graessler, Richard Freitag, Carina Vogt and Severin Freund) missed a podium finish and ended 4th. Freitag and Freund are clearly in a great shape, but the two ladies were unable to keep up with them. The American team finished a strong 5th today. With Sarah Hendrickson and Lindsey Van, the US team has two of the strongest female jumpers in the field. Here, Anders Johnson and Peter Frenette had a difficult time (and also difficult weather conditions) to keep the pace but still delivered strong jumps.
The Czech team (Vladena Pustkova, Roman Koudelka, Michaela Dolezelova and Lukas Hlava) came in 6th. Hlava, winner of the qualification earlier today was the strongest member of his team this time as well. The Slovenian team ranked 7th. Maja Vtic, Matjaz Pungertar, Eva Logar and Peter Prevc did well today, but could not compete for one of the top positions. The Swiss (Bigna Windmueller, Gregor Deschwanden, Sabrina Windmueller and Simon Ammann) were 8h. Of this team, the performances of Deschwanden and Ammann were especially noteworthy.
Kofler disqualified
The biggest surprise of the day: Team Austria did not make it into the final round. Andreas Kofler was disqualified shortly before the end of the first round because his suit was too big. Thus, one of the top favorites was already out already at half time. The same fate was shared by the Canadian team. Since Matthew Rowley was disqualified early on, the Canadians had no chance to follow up on the strong results from summer.
The French quartet (Julia Clair, Ronan Lamy Chappuis, Coline Mattel and Emmanuel Chedal) finished 9th. Even though they did not advance to the final, the team can certainly boast with very competitive female athletes. The Finnish team has also seen better days. The athletes of Pekka Niemelä came in 10th this time. The Russians also have room for improvement: The team made up of Anastasiya Gladysheva, Anton Kalinitschenko, Irina Avvakumova and Dimitry Vassiliev did not show their best shape and thus could not qualify for the second round.
| 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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