Poland wins in the cauldron of Zakopane

It was a great competition in front of a great crowd. More than 30 000 fans in the arena at the Wielka Krokiew hill in Zakopane and an estimated 15 000 outside of the fence saw one of the best Ski Jumping team competitions in recent years. The outstanding local hero Kamil Stoch crowned the event with the very last jump of the day on the new hill record of 141.5 m. Poland took a well-deserved win ahead of Germany and Norway.

This success was the first home win ever for a Polish team and so the enthusiasm of the fans after the competition knew no bounds. The winning team celebrated in the outrun for minutes. Poland, with Maciej Kot, Stefan Hula, Dawid Kubacki and Kamil Stoch, scored a total of 1092.0 points. "I almost lost the balance after the landing in the second round, but this jump was still one of the best jumps I had this season.  I hope that I can jump even better in the future. I think it's possible to jump 145 m here and even land with a telemark", Kamil Stoch explained after the competition.

The German team, with Stephan Leyhe, Markus Eisenbichler, Andreas Wellinger and Richard Freitag, presented itself strong today. Especially Richard Freitag could show a convincing performance, but also Andreas Wellinger, who had some problems on the HS 140 in Zakopane yesterday, did very well. "The competition was on a very high level. I'm happy with my jumps, I improved a lot compared to yesterday. The guys did a good job. I expected the Polish team to be that strong, they are jumping very well, especially in Zakopane. They were the best today", said Wellinger.

For the Norwegians, who had youngster Marius Lindvik on the team alongside Anders Fannemel, Johann Forfang and, Robert Johansson, the third place was the well-deserved reward for a strong performance. Even if this result was the end of a five competition winning streak. "It was a really strong performance of the Polish team. We weren't jumping on the same level, but our number one jumper, Daniel Andre Tande. was not on the team today due to his sickness. The Polish and the German team were really good. We have to work hard to beat them at the Olympics, that's our goal", said Anders Fannemel.

The Austrians came in fourth, over 60 points behind Norway. More doesn't seem to be possible for the team of Stefan Kraft, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Michael Hayboeck and Manuel Fettner. Everything has to work out perfectly for the Austrians if they want to fight for a medal in the team event in PyeongChang.

The team of Japan, for which Daiki Ito made a successful comeback after a long break due to injury, finished fifth. Slovenia was sixth, followed by Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

The individual competition with top favorite Kamil Stoch starts on Sunday at 4 pm CET.