Hautamaeki wins the duel with Ljoekelsoey

Although Finnish fans couldn't see Janne Ahonen winning in his hometown, another Finn Matti Hautamaeki made the home win, beating Norway's Roar Ljoekelsoey and Austria's Thomas Morgenstern. After a shorter jump in the second round, Adam Małysz slipped from 4th to 7th place.

At the beginning of the first round, none of 20 ski jumpers reached the calculation line and the jury decided to put higher the starting gate and restart the competition. As the inrun speed still couldn't reach the necessary level, the launch was moved up once more before the second round.

The advantage Matti Hautamaeki got after his first-round effort of 127,5 metres was enough to secure him the first place. In the second leg, he jumped 124,5 metres and overtook Roar Ljoekelsoey with a slight advantage of only 1 point. Ljoekelsoey, who was fifth after his first attempt of 123,5 metres, soared to 128,5 metres in the second round and edged out Janne Ahonen for a position on the podium.

Jakub Janda, who was weakened by health problems, did pretty well in today's competition with two technically excellent jumps of 124 and 125,5 metres. Germany's Michael Uhrmann and Georg Spaeth also made good performances and finished in 6th and 8th place respectively. Among well-known Finnish ski jumpers, home crowd could also see young Kalle Keituri: 20th in today's event, he earned his first 11 points in the World Cup standings.

Fifteenth place by Rok Benkovic was surely among the biggest disappointments of the day. The new World Champion from the small hill made a feeble 114,5-metres in the first leg, which enabled him to fight for a better place in the competition.

Adam Małysz made our hopes rise after his impressive 125 metres in the first round. Unfortunately, only 122-metre jump in the second leg was definitely not enough to fight for the podium. He finished in 7th place, while another Pole, Robert Mateja, settled for 42nd position after a feeble result of 101 metres.

The World Cup and the Nordic Tournament continues on Wednesday with an individual event in Kuopio, Finland.