Universiade: Poland wins final team event in Almaty

Poland concluded the Universiade 2017 in Almaty with another successful day in the Team Event. Adam Cieslar, Pawel Slowiok and Wojciech Marusarz won the gold, followed by Timofey Borisov, Samir Mastiev and Viacheslav Barkov, who took silver for Russia. The Japanese team (Shota Horigome, Go Yamamoto and Go Sonehara) claimed the remaining bronze medal.

The ski jumping round had team Japan in the lead. Horigome, Yamamoto and Sonehara collected a point total of 356.8 with jumps of 90.5, 94.5 and 100 metres. This gave them a head start of 5 seconds on Team Russia (jumps of 99, 88.5 and 95 metres; 353 p.). Tom Krause, Tobias Simon and David Welde started their race from rank three and eleven second behind the leaders from Japan. Poland ranked fourth and had to make up 20 seconds.

All three Polish athletes really stepped on the gas in the 3x5 km race and Marusarz, who opened the race, skied his team up to the second position. With 11:10.0, his teammate Adam Cieslar was the fastest man on the track and brought his team into the lead. Pawel Slowiok only had to keep up the advantage and even though Viacheslav Barkov was the fastest athlete of the third leg, he could not get his team closer than 29.8 seconds at the finish line.

Team Japan finished one minute and one second behind the winners from Poland and beat Team Germany to the medal. David Welde ended the race for his team one minute and 20 seconds behind Poland. Rank five went to Ukraine, the home team from Kazakhstan finished on the sixth rank.