Impressive Norwegians again the best team

Zyla disqualified

The event, which was held under, for Ruka, unusual good conditions, had a turbulent start. Already in the first group, Poland's Piotr Zyla was disqualified before his jump. "The measurement of the crotch length was not okay", reported FIS equipment controller Morten Solem and so the fight of the Polish team for a spot on the podium was over early.

All Norwegians extremely strong

The Norwegian team didn't get distracted by what happened and all four athletes showed amazing performances. The team of head coach Alexander Stoeckl didn't have one bad jump and so they took a clear win in Ruka. "It was an amazing competition for our team. I personally was not very confident today because I didn't jump well yesterday. The rest of the team was jumping really well and today I managed to bring up my level so I could match theirs. Many teams were strong, but we had an amazing competition today. Our key to success is that we have with what we do. This is a sport that gets quite boring if you don't have fun", said Daniel Andre Tande.

Germany beats Japan with final jump

The teams of Japan and Germany put up a fascinating fight until the very last jump. The second jump of Japan's Junshiro Kobayashi, who won last weekend in Wisla, was decisive, his 129.5 m were not enough as Richard Freitag jumped on 138 m and took the second place today for the team of head coach Werner Schuster. "The competition was pretty interesting, especially the second round. The weather conditions were great for Ruka, it was not that cold. I'm satisfied with my jumps. It's really fun for me to jump right now and I think it's nice to see that so many teams are jumping on such a high level", explained Freitag.

For the Germans and the Japanese, today's result was a success, after they came in fourth and fifth last week in Wisla (POL).

Taku Takeuchi said on behalf of his team: "We are very happy because last year we couldn't finish on the podium. My jumps were not bad today, yesterday I jumped only on 92 m and today much further. So I'm satisfied with my performance."

Stefan Kraft outstanding - Austrians miss podium

Despite an outstanding performance of Stefan Kraft (138 m and 147.5 m), the team of Austria came in fourth. "I have mixed feelings today. Of course, we would have wanted to finish on the podium, but we will definitely fight back", said Kraft. He set a new hill record with 147.5 m with five times 19.5 by the judges and is now the top favorite for Sunday's individual competition.

Peter Prevc on his way back

The team of Slovenia finished fifth. Jernej Damjan showed a convincing performance and Peter Prevc is, slowly but surely, getting back in his best shape. Poland made the cut for the final round with one jump less than the rest, was sixth and scored valuable points. Switzerland was seventh, followed by Russia in eighth. Italy, Finland, the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan couldn't qualify for the final of the best 8 teams.

The individual competition in Ruka is held on Sunday at 4 pm LOC (3 pm CET).