Ahonen wins first Four Hills event; Poutiainen extends World Cup lead

print this

Finnish ski-jumper Janne Ahonen, who has taken the sport by storm this year, triumphing in all but one of the eight previous competitions, continued where he left off on Wednesday and took the first competition in the New Year "Four Hills" Tournament.
      Ahonen had jumps of 127 metres and 133.5 metres on the Oberstdorf hill, which were enough to secure a 9.6 points margin over Roar Ljökelsöy of Norway, with Adam Malysz of Poland back in third spot.
      Ahonen, who has been widely tipped on his present form to emulate Sven Hannawald’s unique feat of winning all four events, was particularly delighted about the opening competition, as he has not previously managed better than 3rd place in Oberstdorf.
      If he needed any further assistance on his way to what looks at present like an inevitable World Cup victory, Ahonen got it when rivals Jakob Janda (Czech Republic) and Thomas Morgenstern of Austria could do no better than 9th and 11th respectively. Ahonen leads with 880 points, 403 ahead of Janda.
      Ahonen got reasonable support from other members of the Finnish squad: Matti Hautamäki finished 6th, Risto Jussilainen was 12th, and Tami Kiuru was 20th.
      The next round of the Four Hills Tournament will be in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on New Year’s Day.
     
Meanwhile, at Semmering in Austria, Finland's leading Alpine skier Tanja Poutiainen finished third in a FIS World Cup slalom competition and increased her lead in the overall World Cup standings.
      Wednesday brought a second successive win for local skier Marlies Schild, with Janica Kostelic of Croatia in second place. Poutiainen was 1.4 seconds adrift of Schild’s time on the two runs, but she was appreciably closer to second place, losing out to Kostelic by 0.36 seconds.
      Anja Pärson of Sweden finished in 5th place, meaning that Poutiainen narrowly increased her overall lead in the World Cup standings.
      She heads the slalom table with 320 points, and is 88 points clear of Pärson in the overall rankings, with 626 points. These come almost exclusively from slalom and giant slalom, as Poutiainen does not ski in the downhill events, and has only taken part in one Super-G competition.


Links:
  FIS World Cup

Helsingin Sanomat