Anders Fannemel wins Ski Jumping nail biter in Engelberg

The Ski Jumping winter 2017/18 is still a winter full of surprises. Norway's Anders Fannemel was the fifth different winner in the sixth individual competition of the season. Only second-placed Richard Freitag was on top of the podium twice so far (Nizhny Tagil and Neustadt). The third place in Engelberg went to Poland's Kamil Stoch.

Fannemel with tiny lead

Fannemel's win was as close as it can be. With his jumps of 133 m and 127.5 m, the 26-year-old scored 253.6 points, this was a lead of only 0.1 points over Freitag. "This win today was a surprise for me", explained the winner. "This season I always had the feeling that I was close, but so far I not always had the best conditions. Today everything worked out for me. I had a good feeling all day, but nobody was expecting this win, not even myself. I will celebrate a bit with the team, and my sister is here as well. I hope I'll get to see her this evening."

Richard Freitag could extend his overall lead in the World Cup with his second place today and praised the winner: "Anders was jumping great today, he deserved this win, even if 0.1 point is really close. Also, Kamil jumped very well, I'm sure that he is on his way back to the top. I'm really happy about this second place today, many athletes were jumping strong in this competition, everything was so close. Thanks to all the volunteers who made this competition possible despite all the snow", stated Freitag.

Stoch top - Poles good

"It was a difficult competition, I'm happy that I was able to show two good jumps under these conditions. Being on the podium today is a huge success for me. It was not easy to not think about the snow, that made the inrun track slow and the landing area soft. It was a competition on the highest level. The wind was not strong, but it affected the jumps, also because the field was so close", Kamil Stoch said after the competition. Besides Stoch, his teammates Dawid Kubacki (8th), Piotr Zyla (10th) and Maciej Kot (17th) also achieved good results.

Norwegians very strong

Besides today's winner Anders Fannemel, also Daniel Andre Tande and Halvor Egner Granerud in fourth and fifth, and Robert Johansson in ninth showed convincing performances. The fifth Norwegian, Johann Andre Forfang, had some bad luck today. He fell in the trial out and complained about pain in his knee due to which he didn't want to compete at first. But then he decided to jump and finished only 31st. Andreas Stjernen came in 19th, despite a crash in the first round.

Junshiro Kobayashi good again

Japan's Junshiro Kobayashi once again proved that his win at the season opener in Wisla (POL) was no coincidence. He came in seventh today and even more would have been possible for the older one of the Kobayashi brothers, but he couldn't defend his second place after the first round in the extremely tight field.

Germans with convincing performance

Lead by Richard Freitag in second, the German ski jumpers presented themselves in a very good shape again. Andreas Wellinger moved up from 21st to sixth in the final round, Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler came in 11th and 12th, Stephan Leyhe and Pius Paschke scored World Cup points in 25th and 27th and young Constantin Schmid was 33rd.

Austrians not among the best

The team of Austria could not achieve top results today. After Stefan Kraft won the qualification and raised the hopes for the first win this season, the best results of the athletes of head coach Heinz Kuttin was the 13th place. At least Stefan Kraft was able to move up from 20th to 13th after a bad first jump. Michael Hayboeck finished 15th.

Freitag extends World Cup lead

In the overall World Cup, Richard Freitag leads with 450 points ahead of his teammate Andreas Wellinger (359 points) and Norway's Daniel Andre Tande (330 points).

The second competition in Engelberg starts on Sunday at 2 pm CET.