. world ski news : Stoch wins close competition in Klingenthal - 02 February 2011 - 20:41
SKI JUMPING WORLD CUP. Kamil Stoch won a turbulent competition in Klingenthal and celebrated his second victory this season. The Pole won with 264.6 points in the Vogtland-Arena only 0.6 points ahead of Austrian Thomas Morgenstern.
"1999 I set a hill record here and I won the Grand Prix competition in October. Klingenthal is a good place for me. My second jump was very good, but the first one was not bad either", told the winner.
Simon Ammann from Switzerland finished third, only 0.7 points behind Morgenstern. This was the closest result so far this winter. And afterwards Ammann critisized the judges. "Morgensterns binding opened at the landing. I don't understand how you can give a 19.0. That cost me the second place."
Morgenstern was satisfied with today's result. "My first jump was very good and so I had a good starting position in the second round. That was another important step for me."
Uhrmann close to victory
A sensation was near in Klingenthal when Michael Uhrmann was in the lead after the first round with a record jump on 146.5 m. He had a big lead and his teammates already gathered at the exit gate to celebrate with the winner afterwards but then he landed already after 115 m und difficult conditions and came in only 13th.
"But that's better than to be 13th with two jumps on 130 m", said Uhrmann.
Austria with clear lead in the FIS-Team-Tour
Andreas Kofler scored more points for Austria as fourth (249.4 points). So the team could extend their already big lead in the Team Tour overall ranking (2152.2 points) and it's almost impossible to beat them in the fight for this title. But Poland also achieved a top result, because besides the winner also Adam Malysz was among the best as seventh. Poland is now second in the Team Tour with 2056.2 points, Germany follows as third (2031.2 points).
Roman Koudelka from the Czech Republic, second after the first round, finished sixth. Still a great result for the Czech who often trains in Klingenthal. Tom Hilde was the best Norwegian as eighth, followed by Janne Happonen from Finland who achieved a top result again. Best German was Severin Freund as tenth. So athletes from seven different nations were in the Top 10. That shows that everyone wants to be in top shape at the WSC.
Bad luck for Norwegians
The jury went down two gates after Uhrmann's jump in the first round and top athletes like Bjoern Einar Romoeren, Johan Remen Evensen, Anders Bardal, Daiki Ito and Wolfgang Loitzl had little chance to reach the final with no headwind.
Especially the Norwegians had bad luck, almost the whole team had bad wind conditions. Also Gregor Schlierenzauer, the winner of the qualification was part of this group. At least he qualified for the final and moved up many places with a 140 m jump in the second round. He finished fifth but was still angry about that first round in the leader's box.
Manuel Fettner from Austria was eleventh and showed that he would deserve a spot on the team for Oslo. Jernej Damjan seems to get in shape right on time for the season's highligh - the 12th place was his season best. Anders Jacobsen was 16th and second best Norwegian. So his points also counted for the Team Tour ranking.
Kasai disqualified
Michael Neumayer was 15th, he was seventh after the first round. His teammate Richard Freitag was 17th. Jakub Janda showed some improvement as 18th. Also Pascal Bodmer is still fighting for a ticket to Oslo and was 19th today. Martin Schmitt could not qualify for the final round.
Besides Happonen no other Finn could achieve a very good result. Matti Hautamaeki was only 28th. Noriaki Kasai showed a great jump in the first round but he was disqualified due to too long skis.
With only six competitions to go this winter, Thomas Morgenstern (1514 points) has a clear lead in the overall World Cup ranking ahead of Simon Ammann (1073 points) and Andreas Kofler (980 points).
FISskijumping.com
02.02.2011 20:10