Norwegians celebrate on the Holmenkollen
Mar 09, 2019·Ski Jumping
The team of Norway (Johann Andre Forfang, Robin Pedersen, Marius Lindvik, Robert Johansson) won the team competition in Oslo after only one round with 469.8 points. The wind conditions on the Holmenkollen were too difficult and so the jury had to decide to cancel the second round today.
The second and third place went to the teams of Japan (Yukiya Sato, Noriaki Kasai, Junshiro Kobayashi, Ryoyu Kobayashi) with 456.8 points and Austria (Michael Hayboeck, Manuel Fettner, Philipp Aschenwald, Stefan Kraft; 454.4 points).
Saturday's team event in Oslo was not the great opener of the third edition of the Raw Air Tour that everyone was hoping for. Instead, it was one competition round that nobody was really happy with, with many interruptions and two crashes.
The athletes of Norway, led by an outstanding Robert Johansson, definitely deserved the win today, but after the crashes of Norway's Marius Lindvik and Germany's Stephan Leyhe, a bitter taste remains.
Johansson even improved the hill record, set by Austrian Andreas Kofler with 141 m in 2011. Robert Johansson posted an incredible jump of 144 m. "Being the new hill record holder on the Holmenkollen is very special, this is a really historic Ski Jumping arena. For a moment I thought I would never land", he described this jump. "For us, as a team, this is a great result and a perfect start of the Raw Air", the team Olympic champion summed up the competition.
After his qualification win yesterday and the amazing jump today, the 28-year-old from Lillehammer leads the Raw Air after two of the 15 jumps with more than 20 points ahead of top favorite Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan.
Kobayashi explained: "The conditions were very difficult, but I was focusing just on my performance and so I was able to make a good jump. We are really very happy that we made it to the podium today."
The third place went to the team of Austria. "It was definitely not fair today, it was extremely difficult to jump", said Stefan Kraft, who was struggling with the conditions, just like most of the athletes today.
The teams of Poland (4th) and Germany (5th) missed the podium today. Stephan Leyhe fell face-first after the landing of his jump. He sustained abrasions and complained about pain in his right ankle.
"If I get headwind further down the hill than I smash on the outrun", World Champion Markus Eisenbichler explained the problems in today's competition. Eisenbichler is now third in the overall ranking of the Raw Air Tournament. He is followed by Stefan Kraft, Dawid Kubacki, and Slovenia's Timi Zajc.
The individual event on Sunday starts at 2:30 pm CET and the weather conditions shall then be a lot better than today.
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