. world ski news : Stoch defies the wind and wins - 14 August 2011 - 16:56
SKI JUMPING. Kamil Stoch ended the winning streak of Thomas Morgenstern. The Pole won a nerve wrecking competition in Einsiedeln that was influenced by the wind conditions.
Stoch defied the conditions and showed a fantastic jump on 118 m, that earned him 137.0 points. "I'm very happy about my victory today, especially because I worked so hard and fought for it since the beginning of the summer. I knew already in the morning that it would be a difficult competition because of the wind. The only thing you can do is focus, and that's what I did today", said Stoch.
Morgestern also made a strong jump, but with his 112.5 m he reached a total of only 133.5 points. So Morgenstern had to leave the top spot on the podium to another athlete. "Of course it's never perfect when a competition is decided after only one round. But when a round takes two hours it's probably a good decision to cancel. It was a challenge to stay focused for such a long time and that's why I'm happy about my second place."
First podium result for Velta
Norwegian Rune Vela finished third. He jumped under better conditions and could achieved the podium result of his career in an FIS GP competition. With 126.3 points he was close ahead of the second Pole Rafal Sliz (125.5 points). Robert Kranjec was fifth, he could also show a great jump under difficult conditions. "I'm very happy about my result in today's competition. Of course you can always speculate if the wind helped or not and, for sure, I didn't have bad conditions. But I think I also jumped well", said the Norwegian.
Simon Ammann was sixth in his first appearance this summer and the Swiss, who still has a training deficit, will be satisfied with this result. Andreas Wank was the best German as sixth, Manuel Fettner from Austria, Russian Denis Kornilov and Czech Ondrej Vaculik completed the Top 10.
Wind, wind, wind - a marathon-competition
It was a difficult competition in Einsiedeln under changing weather conditions. There was a strong, gusty tailwind at the hill. Some of the favorites didn't have a chance for a top result despite the bonus points of the wind-factor. So for example the two Norwegians Tom Hilde and Johan Remen Evensen, Taku Takeuchi from Japan and Bulgarian Vladimir Zografski could not score points on this windy Sunday.
On his 20th birthday, Richard Freitag had to wait about ten minutes until the wind conditions allowed him to jump. He could then show a good jump on 107.5 m and should be satisfied with his eleventh place. All in all the first round took about two hours.
After six competition and with five more to go, Morgenstern has a clear lead in the overall GP ranking with his 580 points. Kamil Stoch is second with 389 points.
FISskijumping.com
14.08.2011 15:42