Austrians start new season with a bang

The ski jumpers of Austria won this winter's first team event in an outstanding manner. Philipp Aschenwald, Daniel Huber, Jan Hoerl, and Stefan Kraft took the win in Wisla (POL) with a total of 1018.2 points, followed by the teams of Norway (995.7 points) and Poland (990.9 points).

Unlike yesterday, the HS 134 in Wisla was in a good condition and the competition became a true nail-biter in which five teams had the chance to come out on top.

Norway, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, and Austria could hope for a top result after round one, before the Austrians then made it a perfect start of the season for their head coach Andreas Felder. "We didn't really know where we stand compared to the other teams. But I think that you can't have a better start. We all showed great jumps and I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks", explained Philipp Aschenwald.

"You always hope that everyone performs like that and it's great that it worked that well. We already did very well in the recent team events here, but today we all showed really great performances. Winning with a lead of over 20 points - Hats off, I can hardly believe it myself", Stefan Kraft summed up the competition.

This was the 30th win in a World Cup team event for Austria, the first-ever in Poland. The longest jump of the day was shown by Austria's Daniel Huber in the second round.

The second place went to the strong team of Norway. With the two veterans Robert Johansson and Daniel Andre Tande and the two youngsters Thomas Aasen Markeng and Marius Lindvik, they had the perfect mix of experience and youth today. The Norwegians scored 995.7 points.

The local heroes of Poland came in third and more would have been possible for Kamil Stoch, Dawid Kubacki, Jakub Wolny, and Piotr Zyla, but somehow it seemed a bit jinxed. Every Polish jumper had one top jump and a mediocre one. In the end, 990.9 points were enough for the good third place for the athletes of head coach Michal Dolezal.

Close behind the Top 3, Slovenia came in fourth. The Slovenes were fighting for the win for a good part of the competition, but then they lost too much ground compared to today's top teams.

A similar fate was shared by the German team with Richard Freitag, Markus Eisenbichler, Stephan Leyhe, and Karl Geiger. In the first round, they were among the very best, in the end, the team of the new head coach Stefan Horngacher finished fifth with 972.6 points.

Japan in sixth, Switzerland, without Simon Ammann, in seventh and Finland in eighth completed the Top 8 in a high-level and exciting World Cup opener.

Dawid Kubacki would have won a virtual individual ranking today ahead of Karl Geiger and Stefan Kraft. The top contenders for Sunday's individual competition seem clear.

The second competition of the winter, the individual event in Wisla, starts on Sunday already at 11:30 am CET.

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