Mixed team gold for Germany
Mar 02, 2019·Ski Jumping
In the final Ski Jumping event in Seefeld, the favorites of Germany won an exciting duel with Austria and took WSC gold in the mixed team competition for the third time in a row, after Lahti 2017 and Falun 2015.
Katharina Althaus, Markus Eisenbichler, Juliane Seyfarth and Karl Geiger claimed the title on the Toni-Seelos-Olympic hill with 1012.2 points. For Juliane Seyfarth and Karl Geiger, this was the first title with a mixed team, for Markus Eisenbichler (2017) and Katharina Althaus (2015) it was a familiar feeling.
The win crowns very successful Championships for Germany, outstanding athlete of this strong team was Markus Eisenbichler, who will leave Seefeld with three gold medals in his bags. "The first jump today was not good at all, in the second round I had a good take-off and it worked really well again. Being a three-time World Champion still seems far away. I think I will realize what happened here when I return home tomorrow and can calm down a bit. It's really cool, the World Championships were great for me", said the Bavarian.
The hosting team from Austria fought for gold until the final group. In the end, Eva Pinkelnig, Philipp Aschenwald, Daniela Iraschko-Stolz and Stefan Kraft finished second with 989.9 points. After silver with the team and bronze in the individual event on the normal hill, Stefan Kraft was on the podium three times: "I didn't expect to win three medals here. It's incredible and extremely happy. We will celebrate this today."
Not only the fight for gold was exciting, but it was also a tight race for the third place this evening. Norway, Slovenia, and Japan were fighting for the bronze medal and the teams were often separated by just a few points. Norway (Anna Odine Stroem, Robert Johansson, Maren Lundby, Andreas Stjernen; 938.4 points) then came out on top and took the bronze.
Slovenia was fourth and missed the podium by only a few points, despite the longest jump of the day by Ryoyu Kobayashi with 113 m in the final round, Japan finished fifth.
For Poland, surprisingly in third after the first round, the sixth place in this event is a success. World Champion Dawid Kubacki would have been the best in an individual ranking again.
Russia (7th) and Italy (8th) also qualified for the second round, the Czech Republic, the USA, Finland, Rumania, and Kazakhstan failed to make the cut for the final of the Top 8 teams.
The Nordic World Ski Championships 2019 are now over for the ski jumpers. The season continues next weekend with the opening event of the Raw Air on the Holmenkollen in Oslo (NOR).
