Ahonen, again (twice)

Finnish ski-jumper is running out of superlatives: seven World Cup wins out of eight

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Finnish ski-jumper Janne Ahonen went to Engleberg in Switzerland and won two World Cup events last weekend. He collected 200 points for the World Cup standings, to go alongside the 580 points he had gathered from the previous six rounds of competition this season, and he now leads the rankings by 332 points from Jakub Janda of the Czech Republic, who was 2nd on Sunday.
      In eight starts this season, Ahonen has climbed to the highest step on the podium seven times, and he was runner-up on the only occasion he failed to win.
      Michael Schumacher’s dominance of Formula One racing has been suggested as a parallel, and now the latest point of comparison is the counting of electors’ votes during Finnish Presidential polls in the time of Urho Kekkonen, who traditionally enjoyed the support of all political parties: "Kekkonen, Kekkonen, Kekkonen, Kekkonen...".
     
Ahonen has already set a new record for the sport, and he is fast coming up on the outside in voting for Finland’s Sportsman of the Year, although he personally believes the award - to be decided this week - will go to one of the Olympic medallists.
      Briefly, Ahonen won Saturday’s event by 1.1 points from Thomas Morgenstern of Austria with Jakub Janda, who led after the first round, back in third.
      Not for the first time this year, Ahonen was obliged to produce an ungainly landing on his first jump, which he pulled down for safety reasons after he had gone over the 141-metre mark. This duly added four metres to the Engelberg hill record. His second jump of 137.5 metres was also the longest of the round.
     
On Sunday, things were a good deal tighter. Ahonen could only put 0.4 points between himself and Janda, and once again he was penalised in the style department. Nevertheless, making the longest jumps in each round counts for quite a lot in this sport, and it was enough to see him home.
      This was in fact his fifth World Cup win on the Engelberg hill, and it was 11 years to the day since he won his first FIS competition here, in 1993
      Matti Hautamäki provided solid flanking support, with 6th place on both days. Tami Kiuru was the only other Finn in the points - he came 20th on Sunday.
     
The attention now turns to the Four Hills competition, held on both sides of the New Year. Thus far only one man - Sven Hannawald of Germany - has won all four competitions. In his present form, it would be a brave man who bets against Ahonen.


Links:
  FIS Ski-Jumping

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