Team event in Oberstdorf: Austria takes the gold!

After a fascinating fight during the team event in Oberstdorf, the Austrian quartet of Wolfgang Loitzl, Andreas Widhoelzl, Thomas Morgenstern and Martin Hoellwarth won the World Championship gold. The Germans took the silver, while Slovenia ousted Finland for bronze with an advantage of only 1.5 point.

The HS 100 team event in Oberstdorf, just like Saturday's individual competition, was marked by very difficult weather conditions. Today, heavy snow falls made the organisers delay the second round for about 15 minutes. A low launch didn't let ski jumpers achieve good speed down the track and it had to be moved up several times. The team that performed best in today's competition were the Austrians, who led in the competition's ranking from start to finish. Martin Hoellwarth (94 and 97,5 metres) and Wolfgang Loitzl (97,5 and 93 metres) were definitely the most consistent jumpers of the team. Thomas Morgenstern registered the longest jump of the day (100 metres), but after his feeble second jump (82,5 metres), it seemed that the whole effort of the team might be dashed. It was Martin Hoellwarth who helped his team out and confirmed Austria's win with 6.5 points over Germany.

Home favourites, the Germans, settled for silver, mainly thanks to very good and consistent jumps from Martin Schmitt (91,5 and 95,5 metres) and Georg Spaeth (94 and 99 metres). Surprisingly, the hero of the bronze team was not the new World Champion Rok Benkovic, but Jernej Damjan. For his impressive efforts of 98 and 95 metres, he got the highest individual note and secured the 3rd place for his country.

While the Poles took a good 6th place and the Russian team, led by German coach Wolfgang Steiert, settled for a very good 5th position, one of the best ski jumping teams, the Norwegians, didn't even enter the final 8. After a disastrous leap from Sigurd Pettersen (66,5 metres), even a huge 97-metre effort from Roar Ljoekelsoey couldn't better their position. Norway finished in 12th place, behind Korea and Kazakhstan.

The next World Championship event will take place on Friday, with an individual competition on large hill.