Mario Seidl steals the win in Oberwiesenthal

It was not the home team from Germany who was able to take the big trophy and the traditional cake of the “Kaffee König Pokal” in Oberwiesenthal but Austria’s Mario Seidl. The current best jumper of the field stole the victory from local hero Eric Frenzel by a clear 10.5 seconds. Frenzel’s teammate Fabian Rießle finished third, 12.3 seconds after the winner.

Austrian Mario Seidl demonstrated his skills on the jumping hill again and claimed the third jumping win in as many days on the Fichtelbergschanze. In a very long competition round that was marked by changing winds, Seidl showed strong 106 metres. 130.1 points gave him the pole position for the race. New hill record holder Akito Watabe also had a great effort of 102.5 metres, which put him only four seconds behind Seidl.

Japanese teammate Hideaki Nagai claimed the third position after the jump. 98.5 metres and 122.8 points meant a time disadvantage of 29 seconds at the start line. Young Czech Ondrej Pazout impressed with the fourth rank (99.5 m; 120.9 p.) but had German Fabian Riessle, who was skiing in the newly introduced special bib for the fastest skier, breathing down his neck. The two just started three seconds apart, at +0:37 and 0:40. Local hero Eric Frenzel ended up on the ninth place and had 46 seconds to make up, teammates Kircheisen and Weber followed at +0:51 and +0:53.

Mario Seidl and Akito Watabe quickly banded together in the task to escape the fast Germans, who were chasing the podium positions. They were quite successful in this endeavour until Watabe had to let go of Seidl around the 7 km point of the race. From this moment on, Seidl skied for the victory and he defended his time advantage until the finish line.

Behind him, the chase was on in full force. While Martin Fritz, Kristjan Ilves, Manuel Faißt and Ondrej Pazout fell out of the leading group at various points of the race, Kircheisen, Frenzel and Rießle were pushing hard. Japan’s Hideaki Nagai skied a great race and stayed with the pursuers to reach a final sixth position. Teammate Akito Watabe was caught by Frenzel and Rießle going out on the last lap and had to concede defeat: he finished fourth (+14.2) but managed to keep Björn Kircheisen of his back (+19.6).

Bernhard Flaschberger was awarded with the bib for the fastest skier (24:29.5 for the 10 km) and winner Mario Seidl did not only get the yellow bib of the Summer Grand Prix leader but also kept his best jumper bib.