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Slovenia wins in Willingen
1 February 2015 года
Slovenia wins in Willingen
The jumpers of Slovenia won the team competition in Willingen. Jurij Tepes, Nejc Dezman, Jernej Damjan and Peter Prevc scored a total of 957.9 points and took a clear win ahead of Germany and Norway.

Lead by Peter Prevc, who posted a great jump on 144.5 m in the second round, the consistent Slovenian team came in clearly ahead of the result of the field. Also Jernej Damjan landed over the 140 m with his 143.5 m in the first round, Dezman and Tepes showed consistent performances as well.

Jernej Damjan said: “The key to victory is always to jump well and to make only a few mistakes. We made the least mistakes today. The first jump of Peter Prevc was not that good, but he did a lot better in the final round. We all like the hill here in Willingen. I've been in the World Cup for a long time and we were the favorite for Gold at a major event before and then we didn't win a medal. I hope we can change that this time.”

Freund outstanding in German team

An outstanding performance of Severin Freund was not enough for the German team to take the third win this winter. The Ski Flying World Champion jumped on 140 m and 145 m. Richard Freitag showed what he is capable of with a first jump on 147.5 m. Markus Eisenblicher was the weakest link of the team with 123 m and 124 m. Marinus Kraus made good jumps. At the end they scored 931.7 points and came in 26.2 points behind the winners. Severin Freund was happy about the second place: "I'm very satisfied, we did extremely well in the team competitions so far this season with two wins and a second place. Not everyone can show a perfect performance every day, you have to fight in such competitions and do your best. It was a valuable competition today, we are now in the lead in the Nation's Cup again. We know that people expect us to win a medal at the World Championships, we expect that ourselves. It's a positive sign that we could achieve strong result this season with different jumpers on the team.”

Fannemel close to hill record

The best of the Norwegian team was Anders Fannemel, who jumped on 151.5 m in the first round, only 0.5 m short of the hill record. Anders Jacobsen, Rune Velta and Tom Hilde could not reach the 140 m mark. Jacobsen got the closest with his 137 m, Tom Hilde couldn't jump over 130 m today. Anders Fannemel said afterwards: “It was a good day for me, even better than yesterday. I had a great first jump and it was a fantastic competition. I think it's possible to set a new hill record, I'll try it again tomorrow. It's good for the team to be on the podium again.”

Not a good day for Japan and Austria

916.5 points were clearly enough to finish third, as Japan could not meet the expectations with 843.7 points. Only Noriaki Kasai could keep up with the best with 136 m and 137.5 m. Taku Takeuchi, Kento Sakuyama and Shohei Tochimoto could not show their best performances today. It was also not a good day for the Austrians. Gregor Schlierenzauer, Andreas Kofler, Michael Hayboeck and Stefan Kraft came in on a disappointing fifth place with 838.8 points. 4-Hills-Tournament winner Stefan Kraft was the only one with two good jumps on 138 m and 135.5 m. Schlierenzauer jumped on 122.5 m and 131 m and is still lacking consistency, Hayboeck and Kofler could also not do very well.

Behind the Czech Republic, with Roman Koudelka, Jan Matura, Jakub Janda and Lukas Hlava, was sixth with 786.6 points. As expected, Koudelka was the best of his team with 137 m and 137.5 m. The seventh place with 674.0 points is at least a small success for the Russian team with Dimitry Vassiliev, Denis Kornilov, Vladislav Boyarintsev and Anton Kalinitschenko. Italy (Roberto Dellasega, Sebastian Colloredo, Federico Cecon and Davide Bresadola) was eighth with 620.5 points. The teams of Switzerland and Finland, with record 4-Hills-Tournament winner Janne Ahonen and Harri Olli, could not qualify for the final round.

Stoch disqualified

The Polish team missed the final due to the disqualification of double Olympic Champion Kamil Stoch, whose suit was not compliant to the rules. But more than the sixth place would probably not have been possible for Stoch, Klemens Muranka, Aleksander Zniszczol and Piotr Zyla.

The final event of the weekend in Willingen will be another individual competition on Sunday at 3:00 pm CET. 

Source: fis-ski.com



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