Takanashi and Ito performed best in today’s official training in Hinterzarten. Also Slovenians Logar and Pozun, as well as Russia’s Avvakumova and France’s Lemare jumped strong.
The long spring break is over and the new 2013/14 ski jumping season starts today. It is very warm here in Hinterzarten, where the first Grand Prix competitions of this summer take place, and so the athletes were all suffering from the heat in their jumping suits during the official training, that was held at midday today. But we can hope that it will cool down a little until evening, when the Ladies’ individual competition will be held.
No qualification was needed as only 45 jumpers are on the start list. This low number is caused by the absence of the teams from the United States and Norway. While the U.S.-team plans to enter the series in Courchevel, it is expected that the Norwegians will not attend any Grand Prix competitions this summer. Instead of the qualification an additional third training round was held. The Canadian team and all Germans but Juliane Seyfarth skipped this training, so in total only 33 jumpers did jump.
Best in the first training round was last winter’s overall World Cup winner Sara Takanashi from Japan, who jumped 91.0 meters. That was not the farthest jump of the round, but due to the wind compensation rule she scored the most points for it. Second with the farthest jump (95.0 m) came Katja Pozun from Slovenia. The third place of the round was taken by Japan’s Yuki Ito with a nice 93.0 meter jump. For her 93.5 meters Slovenia’s Eva Logar got only the fifth-most points.
Clearly the best in the second training round was Ito with jump of 103.0 meters. She was followed by Pozun who jumped exactly 100 meters. Takanashi took the third round rank with a jump of 97.5 meters. She shared this position with Irina Avvakumova, who also jumped 97.5. Very nice was also the jump of Lea Lemare from France. Her 99.0 meters meant the third longest distance of the round, but as she lost some points to the wind compensation she only took the sixth place of the round.
Pozun passed on the third training round after the two satisfying jumps she made before. Best in this third training was Takanashi with a 96.5 meter jump second behind her came Austria’s Jacqueline Seifriedsberger by jumping 94.5 meters. With her jumps before she had taken 11th and 5th round ranks. The farthest jump of this round made Avvakumova. She scored only the third most points for her 99.5 meters. Lemare jumped again very nice and took the fourth place after landing at 96.0 meters. Ito came fifth of the round by jumping 95.0 meters.
>> Schedule and additional information
FULL TRAINING RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE:
http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2014/JP/3714/2014JP3714RLT.pdf