With a strong performance the team of heach coach Werner Schuster won the first team competition of the season. But they had to fight against the also strong Austrians and Slovenes until the very last jump. The outstanding athlete in the German team: Only 17-year-old shooting star Andreas Wellinger.
Afte a waiting period of 1027 days - that's how long ago the Germans won their last team competition (Feb. 7, 2010 in Willingen) - they now achieved a well deserved victory with a great performance in this season's first team event in Kuusamo (FIN). With 1104.1 points, Severin Freund, Andreas Wellinger, Michael Neumayer and Richard Freitag proved that they are in a great shape already at the beginning of the season. It's remarkable that the team was lead by shooting star Andreas Wellinger, for whom it's only the second World Cup weekend. Wellinger jumped on 137 m and 143 m and would have even won an individual ranking. "These were fantastic jumps. It was a great competition and I'm very happy about this win", he said after the competition.
Press Conference after the competition >>
The Austrians (Wolfgang Loitzl, Manuel Fettner, Gregor Schlierenzauer und Thomas Morgenstern) came in second, only 5,3 points behind their German colleagues. The athletes of head coach Alexander Pointner are used to success, had a great competition and had mixed feelings about their second place. They were fighting for the win until the final jump, but also had to defend the second place against the strong Slovenian team. "It’s a little bit sad that my first jump was so bad because victory would have been very easy. I think everybody wanted to win, me either, but if we don’t make the best jumps, then it’s not that easy", said Fettner.
Michael Neumayer, Andreas Wellinger, Richard Freitag, Severin Freund
Hvala in top shape
The Slovenian team took the last spot on the podium with 1064.4 points, after the first round the even had a realistic chance to win this event. Jurij Tepes and Peter Prevc showed very consistent and good jumps in both ounds and Jaka Hvala was presenting himself in fantastic form with jumps on 138 m and 137.5 m. It was a well-deserved third place and even a victory would have been possible today. That they could not achieve that was due to a very bad second jump of Robert Kranjec, who landed already after 104.5 m. With that the chances to win were lost for the jumpers of Goran Janus - for this event. The Slovenes and can and have to be expected to finish at the top in the next team competition. Their performance today was extremely strong. Jaka Hvala commented on team’s success: "I’m satisfied with my jumps. Even if we’re third and after the first round first, we’re happy. It’s a great result for us."
The Norwegians including Anders Fannemel, Tom Hilde, Anders Jacobsen and Anders Bardal delivered some very good distances and up untill the penultimate jumps could have grabbed the third spot on the podium. Eventually the team came in 4th, 15.6 points behind the Slovenians. The Japanese team ended 5th being in a similar situation to their rivals from Norway. Reruhi Shimizu, Yuta Watase, Noriaki Kasai and Taku Takeuchi collected 1015.4 points, which was not enough to compete with the best teams on this day.
The Russian team (Denis Kornilov, Alexey Romashov, Anton Kalinitschenko and Dimitry Vassiliev) ranked 6th this time. Vassiliev delivered a terrifying scene in his first try after he lost the balance at the landing and felt down after an amazing jump of 143m. Fortunately, he managed to get up on his feet and walk on his own. The host team made of Olli Muotka, Mika Kulmala, Ville Larinto and Lauri Asikainen ended 7th, while the Czech team (Jakub Janda, Roman Koudelka, Jan Matura and Lukas Hlava) finished 8th.
Disappointment for the Polish team
Out of the eleven teams which took part in the team event, three remained unhappy with no chances of improvement in the second round. Switzerland (Gregor Deschwanden, Pascal Sommer, Marco Grigoli and Simon Ammann) came in 9th. The French athletes ranked 10th this time. The team made up of Emmanuel Chedal, Ronan Lamy Chappuis, Nicolas Mayer and Vincent Descombes Sevoie collected 359.4 points, with its athletes jumping below the 120m distance line.
This was not the best evening for the Polish team, which proved to be the weakest part of today’s event on a large hill. With Dawid Kubacki being the only one crossing the K-Point with a jump of 123.5m and the rest of the jumpers (Kamil Stoch, Piotr Zyla and Maciej Kot) delivering a very disappointing performance, Poland missed the qualification round taking the last place.
| 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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