Poland soars to team win in Planica
Mar 23, 2019·Ski Jumping
The Polish Ski Jumping team (Jakub Wolny, Kamil Stoch, Dawid Kubacki, Piotr Zyla) won the final team competition of the season in Planica (SLO) with a total of 1627.9 points, followed by Germany (Karl Geiger, Constantin Schmid, Richard Freitag, Markus Eisenbichler; 1619.8 points) and Slovenia (Anze Semenic, Peter Prevc, Domen Prevc, Timi Zajc; 1603.1 points).
It was yet another strong team performance of Poland with the strong Jakub Wolny in the first group laying the foundation for this wire-to-wire victory. The final jumper, Piotr Zyla, provided some extra excitement when he had to touch the snow with his hands after the landing at 242.5 m in the second round. That's why Poland only had a close lead of 8.1 points over Germany in the end.
In bright sunshine and with temperatures of about 17°C, this winter's best team took a well-deserved win today. Poland (5947 points) now has a lead of over 400 points in the Nations Cup before the final competition on Sunday and practically claimed the title already. The German team is second with 5536 points.
"Team events are very special for us because it's the result of the four guys who are jumping and also for everyone who helps us to achieve so much. It was a great day, everyone made really good jumps. For me personally, it was a tough competition because I was struggling from the beginning of this weekend. I'm very satisfied now because when I needed to do my best, I did my best", said Kamil Stoch.
Once again Markus Eisenbichler was the outstanding athlete of the German team. In the second round, he posted the longest jump of the day wit h246 m and secured the second place for his team ahead of Slovenia. Youngster Constantin Schmid also showed a convincing performance today. "I'm very very happy with this result, there were lots of very good jumps and perfect weather. It's awesome here, I like the hill because you are very high during the flight. I tried to do my best and it worked quite well for me, especially the second jump was very good. I didn't expect that this season will go that well for me", the 19-year-old said after the competition.
The fourth place went to Japan, with another amazing performance by Ryoyu Kobayashi. Austria was fifth, followed by Norway in sixth.
After five of seven jumps, Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi took back the lead in the Planica 7 ranking from Markus Eisenbichler. Kobayashi leads with 1136.4 points, ahead of Eisenbichler (1129.6 points) and Slovenia's Timi Zajc (1068.8 points).
The final event on Sunday will be the big showdown between Markus Eisenbichler and Ryoyu Kobayashi. Both are still fighting for the overall title of the Planica 7 and the prize money of CHF 20 000.- and the small crystal bowl for this season's best ski flyer.
The emotional highlights today were the final jumps of Italy's Sebastian Colloredo and local hero Robert Kranjec.
