Coline Mattel won the individual competition in Otepää ahead of Špela Rogelj and Yuki Ito.
As expected, it was a close race at the Junior World Championships in Otepää today. But – other then expected – not between France’s Coline Mattel and Japan’s Sara Takanashi, but between Mattel and Slovenia’s Špela Rogelj. In the end, the fifteen year old french was the clear winner of that duel and became Junior World Champion 2011. After Bronze in 2009 and Silver in the last year, she has got a full set of medals now. The only female jumper who has also medals of all colours is last year’s winner Elena Runggaldier (ITA). For the first runner-up Rogelj it is the first medal in her career, as well as for Bronze medalist Yuki Ito from Japan.
In the first round Mattel and Rogelj both jumped 96.5 meters. Mattel got higher style marks for her jump and so was ahead by two points. Takanashi was third after the first round (94.5 m), with one point advantage over fourth ranked Jacqueline Seifriedsberger (94.0 m). Ito (93.0 m) and Italy’s Evelyn Insam (94.5 m) were sharing the fifth rank with equal points.
In the second round Ito surprised with a jump on 99.0 meters, the longest of this competition. She was not able to catch up Mattel and Rogelj, as their advantage from the first jump was too big, but improved to the Bronze rank. Insam (96.5 m) and Seifriedsberger (95.5 m) both kept there places. Takanashi unfortunately jumped only 90.0 meters and so fell back to the sixth rank. In the fight for Gold, Rogelj again had a jump on 96.5 meters – the same distance as in the first round. Mattel’s answer on this were even 98.5 meters. Despite she got lower judges points for this jump then Rogelj, she eventually won the competition by 3.5 points.
Bad luck today had Slovenia’s Ursa Bogataj. After jumping 90.5 meters in the first round, her second jump on 69.5 meters would have brought her forward to the top six. But she fell when landing it and so only finished 11th.
Quotations by the medalists:
“I am very happy, because I jumped well and even if I was nervous I knew that a lot of people were expecting me to win, because of the last year and year before that. The competition was difficult because of the wind. I think I was very nervous and maybe I didn’t jump as well as I am capable of. It was nice competition because everyone was fighting for the win” Mattel said at the press conference.
“I am really happy about the result. Two years ago I was disqualified, but today I had good jumps. I proved to myself that I am in a great shape and now I am waiting for the World Championships,” said Rogelj.
“The third place was a really big surprise for me. We had a national competition at Japan and many trainings camps also,” said Ito.
Team event on Saturday
On Saturday, for the first time ever a Ladies team competition will be held as part of Junior World Championships. For that reason another official training is scheduled tomorrow.
RESULTS:
Results after the 1st round »
Final results of the competition »