Tight competition between Austria and local Slovenian team
Feb 22, 2020·Ski Jumping
Austria, with Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, Marita Kramer, Chiara Hoelzl and Eva Pinkelnig, won the team competition in Ljubno (SLO) on Saturday afternoon. The competition was tight against local heroes but Slovenian finished eventually second in the final round, after leading the first one. The third place went to the team of Norway.
As per the first team event in Japan, the Austrians won again, but this time without any domination. Indeed, Slovenian even finished first in the first round, leading with 10.6 points in front of 8’000 visitors cheering and supporting the national team. Nika Kriznar was the first Slovenian athlete to compete, and the best one, pushing the whole team to give its best. Spela Rogelj, Katra Komar and Ema Klinec completed the team. "We were not expecting to fight against Austrian who are really strong this season but after first round we saw it was possible and got extra energy, fighting until the end” as they said. Second round was then a close competition and Austria eventually claimed the win and scored 1008.7 points, less than 4 points ahead of Slovenia. Eva Pinkelnig was the best athlete of the Austrian team.
Norway came third
With Maren Lundby leading the team, Norway came in third today with Anna Odine Stroem, Thea Minyan Bjoerseth and Silje Opseth. They finished with a clear difference of nearly 45 points behind the second-placed Slovenian team.
Performing better than last event in Zao, (JPN), German team finished fourth, 45 points behind Norway. Russia finished just behind (fifth). Japan could have claimed the podium but eventually did not participate in the second round with Yuki Ito being disqualified in the first round.
Finland (eighth) was qualified and scored points in today's Team event. Among the 11 teams, Canada and USA were not qualified for final round as just the eight best remained.
The second competition in Ljubno, an individual event, starts on Sunday at 11.30 am CET (qualification at 10.00 am).
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