German team wins the team event in Willingen

The German team of Maximilian Mechler, Michael Uhrmann, Alexander Herr and Georg Spaeth won the first team jumping of the season on 481.2 points, ahead of teams from Finland (466.9 points) and Austria (429.6 points). Polish ski jumpers finished in tenth position, beating only the team from Kazakhstan.

After the Four Hills Tournament, the regular World Cup returned with the first team event of the season. Due to high snow temperature, rain and strong blasts of wind, the competition was first suspended for 30 minutes and ended after the first round.

The victory of the German team on their home soil was definitely not a coincidence: with a brilliant jump from Georg Spaeth (147 metres), a huge effort from Alexander Herr and good performances made by Michael Uhrmann and Maximilian Mechler, they deserved to take the highest place on the podium. Unfortunately, Alexander Herr has paid a high price for his longest jump of the competition (148 metres): when he landed, he came heavily on his left knee and twisted it badly.

After the first pool and a good jump from Risto Jussilainen, Finland had a huge lead, but in the end, didn't overtook Germany. Janne Ahonen's effort of 145.5 metres wasn't enough to secure the win for his team. In spite of a good jump from Matti Hautamaeki (134 metres), Tami Kiuru's 113,5 metres damaged the Finns' shot.

Austrian team, the big favourite in the competition, settled for third place: Andreas Widhoelzl and Thomas Morgenstern with their tidy jumps of 139,5 and 137 metres couldn't make up for bad performances from Wolfgang Loitzl (117metres) and the leader of the team, Martin Hoellwarth (113,5m).

Today's performance of Poles was far from what we expected. The leader, Adam Małysz, didn't reach the construction point of the hill (125 metres) and secured only a humble ninth place for Polish team. Robert Mateja, who was being seriously blown about in the air, didn't manage to fight for the distance and jumped only 95 metres, just like another Pole, Stefan Hula.

Tomorrow the World Cup continues with the individual event in Willingen.