Poles and Germans top on day 1 in Lahti

Olympic champion Kamil Stoch of Poland won the qualification in Lahti with an outstanding jump of 134.5 m (146.7 points). In, for Lahti unusual, good wind conditions and temperatures of about - 15°C, Stoch could follow up on his great performances at the Olympic Games in PyeongChang and finished clearly ahead of his teammate Dawid Kubacki (130.5 m; 142.9 points). The third place went to strong German Markus Eisenbichler (128 m; 139.6 points).

World Cup leader Kamil Stoch set things straight with the final jump of the day on the HS 130 hill in Lahti. After his performance today, he is now the top favorite for the individual competition on Sunday.

Behind the top-ranked Stoch, Kubacki, and Eisenbichler, Stephan Leyhe (4th), Karl Geiger (5th) and Andreas Wellinger (7th) provided yet another top result for the German team. It seems as if Saturday's team competition will become a duel between Germany and Poland, but team Olympic champion Norway will not give up without a fight. Best Norwegian today was Andreas Stjernen in eighth.

Stefan Kraft was sixth and seemed to have recovered from the, for the Austrian team, disappointing Olympic Games in Korea. Best of the Slovenes, who traveled to Lahti without Peter Prevc, who prefers to train at home instead, was Tilen Bartol in tenth. The two Kobayashi brothers Junshiro and Ryoyu were the best athletes of the Japanese team on Friday evening in 13th and 15th.

In a large field of 73 competitors, some well-known athletes failed to qualify for the individual competition in Lahti. Anze Semenic, Anders Fannemel, Noriaki Kasai and the local heroes Jarkko Maatta and Ville Larinto will not get to compete on Sunday.

The team competition will start on Saturday at 4:30 pm CET.