Germany won the large hill mixed team event, that was held today in the evening in Courchevel, ahead of Japan and France.
The German team consisting of Svenja Wuerth, Michael Neumayer, Ulrike Grässler and Andreas Wellinger and Japan – with Yuki Ito, Yuta Watase, Sara Takanashi and Taku Takeuchi – were fighting hard for the first place. After the first round Germany was in the lead, and Japan only third behind the Canadian team, that eventually came fifth. Japan used the second round to catch up and so lead before the final group. Germany’s last jumper Wellinger had already done his jump and Takeuchi, as last jumper of the competition, was still up at the start, when a total power blackout struck Courchevel. Thus not only TV broadcast was interrupted, also the distance measuring and data system did not work. Takeuchi had to wait until a backup system was online and then made a jump that was slightly shorter than Wellinger’s and so Germany scored in the end 4.2 points more than Japan and won the competition.
Distant third came the team of the hosting nation France with Lea Lemare, Nicolas Mayer, Coline Mattel and Vincent Descombes Sevoie. On places four to eight followed the teams from Slovenia, Canada, the United States, Italy and Russia. The teams from Austria, in which Jacqueline Seifriedsberger was the only A-Squad athlete, and the Czech Republic did not see the final round.
Although the competition was affected by some changing winds, it just has to be registered, that also on the large hill performance differences between women and men were almost not notable! Nevertheless tomorrow’s individual competition will be held on the normal hill.
FULL RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE:
http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2014/JP/3731/2014JP3731RL.pdf