COC-M: Daniel Huber wins in Sapporo

After his third place in the normal hill event on Friday, Daniel Huber could win the first large hill competition of the Continental Cup in Sapporo (JPN) on Saturday.

The 25-year-old Austrian jumped on 128.5 m in the final and was fourth after the first half of the competition, he then claimed the win with his second jump of 139.5 m and a total of 246.0 points. "I'm very satisfied with my jumps today. I started well in training and did a good job in the competition as well", Daniel Huber said after his third win in the Continental Cup.

Evgeniy Klimov of Russia, for whom this was only the eighth start in the COC, scored 240.9 points for his jumps of 136 m and 141.5 m, finished second and achieved his first podium finish in this competition series. "Today was a perfect day, very good weather conditions and good wind. I would like to thank the organizer for this good competition", said the Russian.

With 141.5 m, Norway's Tom Hilde was the best jumper in the first round, his second jump of 129.5 m and 233.0 points were then enough for the veteran to come in third. "I'm very happy with my performance. I'm also happy that I had enough luck with the wind to fight for the win and now I'm satisfied with the third place", said Tom Hilde.

Anze Lanisek of Slovenia moved up from 14th to fourth in the second round, but with 214.8 points he was already clearly behind the best three today. David Siegel was once again the best athlete of the German Ski Association in fifth, Yukiya Sato was sixth and achieved a very good result for the hosting team from Japan today.

Robin Pedersen and Joacim Oedegaard Bjoereng were seventh and eighth and provided a top team result for the Norwegians, with three ski jumpers in the Top 10, that were completed by Germany's Andreas Wank (9th) and Philipp Aschenwald of Austria (10th).

While Aschenwald could move up from 19 to 10 in the second round, it went the other way for his teammate Florian Altenburger. He was third after the first round behind Hilde and Klimov, in bad conditions in the final round he landed already at 99.5 m and finished only 19th.

The winner of Friday's competition, Robert Kranjec, was fourth after the first round and had a very good chance to achieve another top result. But the Slovene was disqualified in the final because his suit did not meet the rules.

Marius Lindvik of Norway, who showed some really good jumps at the World Cup in Zakopane on Friday, remains in the lead of the overall ranking with his 556 points. Nejc Dezman is second with 522 points, David Siegel follows in third with 505 points.