After the final official training, we can look forward to see a close duel for Gold between Sara Takanashi and Daniela Iraschko-Stolz tomorrow.
Only one day to go, then the historic first ladies ski jumping competition at Olympic Games will take place on the HS 106 hill in Sochi. Today in the evening the last of three official trainings was held. Also this training gave a strong clue, that we will most likely see a close duel for Gold between Sara Takanashi from Japan and Daniela Iraschko-Stolz from Austria tomorrow. It was the other way round in the trainings on the days before, but today Takanashi was ahead of Iraschko-Stolz.
Takanashi jumped 101.0, 100.5 and 101.5 meters and so crossed the 100-meter-line in all three jumps. She took the first rank in the first and the third round, but stayed behind Iraschko-Stolz in the second. The Austrian made jumps of 100.0, 101.5 and 99.0 meters and so took third places in the first and final round.
Behind Takanashi and Iraschko-Stolz we can expect a tough fight for Bronze, as a dozen of jumpers showed very strong performances today. Helena Olsson Smeby from Norway jumped 99.0 meters in the first round and so finished second between Takanashi and Iraschko-Stolz. After jumping again 99.0 meters in the second round and so taking a fourth place, she passed on the third jump.
Carina Vogt from Germany jumped only 93.5 meters in the first round. This meant the 16th place only. But then she improved and jumped 98.0 and 100.0 meters. This was enough for the seventh place in the second round and even for the second place in the final round. Slovenia’s Maja Vtic, who was very strong in the first training on Saturday but fainted yesterday, had a weak and a strong jump today. Her 94.5 meters in the first round was just enough for a 17th place, but in the second round she came third by jumping 99.5 meters. She skipped the third jump.
Julia Kykkänen from Finland took places four, five and six by making three nice jumps of 100.0, 98.0 and 97.5 meters. Japan’s Yuki Ito made jumps of 100.0, 96.0 and 98.0 meters and so came fifth, ninth and fourth. Evelyn Insam from Italy celebrates her birthday today and showed very nice jumps of 98.5 and twice 96.0 meters. This allowed her to take places six, eleven and five.
Very consistent was the jumping of Switzerland’s Bigna Windmueller today. She jumped 99.5, 98.0 and 96.5 meters and so took places eight, six and eight. Although the 100.0 meters by Taylor Henrich from Canada were the second longest jump of the first round, she only took a seventh place due to wind and gate compensation. In the following two rounds she finished on places 13 and 19.
The competition will be held tomorrow at 18:30 local time.
FULL TRAINING RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE:
http://data.fis-ski.com/pdf/2014/JP/3927/2014JP3927RLT3.pdf