Coline Mattel wins competition in Pöhla ahead of Ayumi Watase and Sara Takanashi.
Already for the ninth time Pöhla hosted a international Ladies Skijumping competition. But as the HS 65 hill there is now considered to be to small for a Continental Cup, this years competition was organized as a “FIS Race”, outside of the CoC-ranking.
As the competition is scheduled right between the Continental Cups in Bischofsgrün and Oberwiesenthal, many teams, such as France, Japan, the United States, Romania and Russia showed up with their best jumpers there. Austria went to Pöhla with the same B-team that already competed in Bischofsgrün. Other countries, like Germany and Italy also attended the competition, but without their best jumpers. Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the Netherlands decided to skip this event. Finally 40 jumpers from eight countries were competing.
Coline Mattel (FRA) cleary won the competition with two jumps on 63.0 and 63.5 meters. Second rank took Japan’s Ayumi Watase (62.0 and 62.5 meters). Her team-mate Sara Takanashi (61.5 and 61.5 m) took the third rank, ahead of Germany’s Melanie Faisst (62.0 and 62.0 m.). It was a head to head race between Takanashi and Faisst, that the Japanese, who got higher judges points for both jumps, won by 0.1 points only.
Fifth rank took Yuuki Itoh (JPN, 62.0 and 61.0 m.) ahead of overall Continental Cup leader Sarah Hendrickson (USA, 62.0 and 60.5 m).