Team Poland in a league of its own
Feb 15, 2019·Ski Jumping
Piotr Zyla, Jakub Wolny, Dawid Kubacki, and Kamil Stoch won the team competition on Friday evening in Willingen. With a total of 979.4 points, they came in clearly ahead of Germany (Karl Geiger, Richard Freitag, Markus Eisenbichler, Stephan Leyhe; 900.2 points) and Slovenia (Anze Semenic, Peter Prevc, Jernej Damjan, Timi Zajc; 874.0 points).
In Lahti last weekend, the team of Poland was fourth, in Willingen, they now showed what the are really capable of. The team of Stefan Horngacher had a lead of 79 points over Germany today. "This was an impressive performance by our tam. We all showed very good jumps today. When I was up there as the last athlete I already knew that I don't have to jump very far. Willingen is great, the atmosphere here is always impressive", explained an obviously very satisfied Kamil Stoch.
With their success today, the athletes of Poland are now the top favorites for the upcoming Nordic World Championships in Seefeld.
The Germans can also be satisfied with their second place. "The competition went by extremely fast. The atmosphere was good, it's a lot of fun to jump here. Now it's time for the Willingen 5", said Stephan Leyhe.
Peter Prevc and his teammate proved that the Slovenes always have to be reckoned with. "The last time we were on the podium together was in Planica at the end of last winter, now we made it as a team here in Willingen again. We are all in a good shape and tomorrow we also want to fight for the podium", Peter Prevc said after the competition.
The Norwegians, without their two top jumpers Tande and Stjernen, closely missed the podium in this event, but with Halvor Egner Granerud and Junior World Champion Thomas Aasen Markeng, they are on the right track on their way back to the top. Only a very bad jump of Johann Andre Forfang prevented them to finish on the podium for the first time this season.
For the Austrians, today's competition was a disappointment after their win in Lahti last week. The team around Stefan Kraft and Michael Hayboeck came in sixth, but they were only 5.3 points behind the third place. Switzerland and the Czech Republic finished seventh and eighth.
Today's team competition was the replacement for the competition that had to be canceled in Titisee-Neustadt in December.
On Saturday and Sunday, two individual competitions follow in Willingen this weekend.
Eisenbichler wins the qualification
After a short break, the qualification for the individual competitions was held following the team event. Markus Eisenbichler won this round with a jump of 146 m and a total of 164.1 points.
Just like in the competition earlier, Piotr Zyla showed the longest jump. In a bit better conditions than Eisenbichler, the Pole jumped on 147 m and came in second (160.7 points). Only 0.1 points behind Piotr Zyla, Stefan Kraft was third with 145 m. Another 0.3 points behind, Slovenian youngster Timi Zajc finished fourth with 144.5 m.
Karl Geiger and Robert Johansson also landed beyond the 140 m mark. With their jumps of 141 m they were sixth and seventh, behind overall World Cup leader Ryoyu Kobayashi, who started from a lower gate and came in fifth with 139 m.
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