4 Polish jumpers ahead in the Grand Prix in Wisla
Aug 22, 2020·Ski Jumping
999 spectators were enough the create a great atmosphere at the Adam-Malysz-hill in Wisla. It was not the usual cauldron due to the Corona pandemic, but Dawid Kubacki, Kamil Stoch and Piotr Zyla, who swept the podium in the first competition after the long Covid-19 break, still managed to enthuse the fans in the stands.
The fans in the stadium of Wisla saw a competition on a high level on Saturday, in which not only the Top 3, but also Tomasz Pilch and Stefan Hula provided for a total triumph of the Polish team in fourth and sixth.
The Polish team turned the event into a true Ski Jumping festival, and also two Swiss jumpers could finish among the best today. Simon Ammann was fifth and Gregor Deschwanden seventh. Both celebrated the very strong result of the team of head coach Ronny Hornschuh together with Killian Peier, who finished 12th.
Best Austrian today was Philipp Aschenwald in ninth. "For me it was a solid start. In the first round I had difficult conditions and it was also not my best jump. I just lacked a little bit of power at the take-off. The second jump was better. Tomorrow I hope I'll be able to make two really good jumps. It was definitely cool to finally compete again. I think that the organizers and the FIS did a great job here", explained Aschenwald.
Stefan Kraft (back problems) and Michael Hayboeck are not competing this weekend.
In the absence of Karl Geiger and Markus Eisenbichler, Moritz Baer was the best of the German team in tenth. After his long break due to a knee injury, David Siegel had a successful comeback today. Considering this long break and the lack of competitions for him recently, the 27th place was a great result for him.
Various top teams did not travel to Wisla for different reasons. Athletes of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Finland were not allowed to travel to Poland. In other nations, the athletes have to quarantine for 10 days after they return home (Norway), that's why athletes decided not to compete. For the team of Japan, it would have been theoretically possible to come to Wisla, but it would have been very complicated and so the team decided not to take the long trip to Europe.
All in all today's competition was a positive test for the upcoming winter. Many of the measures used today will also be implemented in the World Cup next winter in the same or a similar way.
And the competition was also a successful start for the new FIS Race Director Sandro Pertile of Italy. But if the competition would have taken just two minutes longer, it would have been a problem because a thunderstorm with strong wind gusts started right after the final jump on the Adam-Malysz-hill. This kind of weather would have made Ski Jumping impossible. The award ceremony was already held in heavy rain.
The second competition in Wisla starts on Sunday at 5:30 pm CET.
