opprettet på: 11.03.2013 11:17 / km

Austria captured the well-deserved title and continues its outstanding streak of seven wins in a row. Manuel Fettner was the one, who made the difference today with his incredible performance in the final. After a jump on 128 m the 27-year old lost a ski after the landing, but could keep the balance and avoid the fall before the line, definitely a scene that will be remembered for a long time. Thomas Morgenstern took part in the competition with his sprained ankle and could earn 281.5 points (121 and 129.5 m) for the team. Wolfgang Loitzl (130.5 and 128 m) and Gregor Schlierenzauer (124.5 and 129 m) were also among the best today and completed the total score of 1135.9 points of their team.

 

“It was a pleasure to take part in this team competition. The fight for the top places was really close today and we could enjoy it. I tried to make a telemark in the final round and then I felt some pain in my knee, but it won't be something serious”, Morgenstern told.

 

Thrilling fight for the podium

 

The teams of Norway, Germany and Poland fought a fantastic battle for Silver and Bronze. Until the very last jumps of Anders Jacobsen, Richard Freitag and Kamil Stoch the outcome remained undecided. After the competition a jury meeting had to be held to check the results and importants corrections were made afterwards.

 

Stoch posted a great jump on 130 m, that earned Poland a total of 1121 points. This performance of the World Champion increased the pressure on Richard Freitag of Germany and Anders Jacobsen of Norway. The German could handle the situation, landed at 129.5 m and earned the medal of his team, only 0.8 points ahead of Poland!

 

Also Jacobsen did well, jumped on 131.5 m and this would have been Silver for his team. But right after the competition the jury started to review the video of the competition - the results were not official yet.

 

Wrong start gate as reason for mistake

 

The jury was checking on the start gates of various athletes, especially concerning the gate of the first jump of Norwegian Anders Bardal. After the final decision of the jury, Norway lost the 6.7 compensation points and came in fourth with 1117.3 points.

 

Bardal started from gate 22, but in the result list and the point system the jump was calculated with start gate 20 and he got the bonus points for that. It was a mistake of the competition management that was corrected after reviewing the videos after the competition.  So it took a few minutes until the final result of the places two to four was announced. Only the winner - Austria - was confirmed. Confusion, huge disappointment for Norway and joy for the team of Poland. 

 

TV program interrupted in Poland

 

So much time has passed that the Polish TV channel TVP was not broadcasting from Predazzo anymore and had already returned to their regular evening program. But when the medal for their team became official, the movie was interrupted to announce this decision. 

 

Team Norway: Huge disappointment, but great sportsmanship

 

The decision was a huge disappointment for the Norwegian jumpers. "It's one thing to finish fourth, but if you kind of are already second and won a medal and then lose it again, it's really tough. But such things happen, mistakes happen. There will be no protest from our side", Norwegian team leader Clas Brede Brathen said after the decision.

 

Competition on a very high level 

 

Besides Richard Freitag, who secured the medal with his final jump, Andreas Wank was the hero of the German team. The 25-year-old posted an oustanding jump on 135.5 m in the first round and landed at 126.5 m in the final. Severin Freund (122 m and 125 m) and Michael Neumayer (123.5 m and 126 m) were the other two members the team today. "I am really happy about this medal. We were jumping really well and winning a medal in a team competition is always special. We can celebrate it now", Freitag told after the competition.

 

Wtih the final decision of the jury the Polish team could celebrate its first medal in history in a team competition. With his 301.9 points Kamil Stoch (134 and 130 m) confirmed Thursday's win and would have won an individual competition again today. Strong jumps were shown also by Maciej Kot (123 m and 128.5 m), Piotr Zyla (122 m and 126 m) and Dawid Kubacki (126 m and 128 m).

 

Besides Anders Jacobsen (125.5 m and 131.5 m), also Anders Bardal showed an impressive performance at Trampolino-dal-Ben with his jumps on 128.5 m and 129 m. Andreas Stjernen (125.5 m and 125 m) and Tom Hilde (122 and 118 m) were very consistent. In the end Norway came in only fourth with 1117.3 points.

 

Japan came in fifth in Saturday’s event. Reruhi Shimizu (124.5 m and 118.5 m), Noriaki Kasai (122 m and 131 m), Daiki Ito (128 m and 130.5 m) and Taku Takeuchi (128 m and 127 m) presented themselves in a strong shape, but 1099.1 points were not enough for a better result.

 

The Slovenian team (Robert Kranjec, Jurij Tepes, Jaka Hvala and Peter Prevc) completed the Top 6 today with a total of 1046.4 points. Despite the very good shape of Prevc (127 m and 130 m) Slovenia could not fight for the podium.

 

The seventh place went to the Czech Republic. Roman Koudelka, Lukas Hlava, Jakub Janda and the team-leader Jan Matura scored 1022.1 points. With its total of 965.9 points the Italian team of Roberto Dellasega, Andrea Morassi, Davide Bresadola and Sebastian Colloredo came in eighth. The hosts had a tough battle for the final round with Russia and the jumps of Colloredo and Vassiliev in the fourth group were decisive.

 

The Russian team (Alexey Romashov, Denis Kornilov, Ilja Rosliakov and Dimitry Vassiliev) missed the second round by only 0.1 points. Also the teams of Switzerland, Finland and Kazakhstan could not make it to the final.

 

Complete results as pdf-file