Janne Ahonen enjoys double podium weekend

Janne Ahonen

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Finnish ski-jumper Janne Ahonen produced two podium finishes in the pair of ski-jumping FIS World Cup events held in the Czech Republic over the weekend.
      On Saturday, Ahonen, 28, the winner of the last two ski-jumping World Cup titles, finished in third position in this season's fifth event on the HS-142 hill in Harrachov.
      Ahonen's first jump was 129 metres, while his second round effort carried him to the 140-metre mark.
      Saturday's winner was Switzerland's in-form Andreas Küttel with his second-ever World Cup victory. The first win came a week ago in Lillehammer in Norway.
      Küttel's jumps were 136.5 and 143.5 metres.
      The runner-up spot was secured by German Michael Uhrmann with jumps of 138 and 137.5 metres. The current World Cup leader Jakub Janda of the Czech Republic could only finish seventh on Saturday.
     
On Sunday, the home crowd witnessed an altogether different performance from Janda, who triumphed on the same HS-142 hill with 138.5 and 141-metre leaps.
      Ahonen finished in second, only 5.4 points adrift of the winner.
      "I managed to produce two relatively good jumps. This was a great weekend, and I am definitely satisfied with second place", Ahonen commented in his familiar unruffled manner right after the event.
      After the weekend's success, Ahonen finds himself in joint 2nd place in the World Cup standings together with Andreas Küttel. Both men have 385 points.
      The gap between them and the leader Janda is 67 points.
      So far, the beginning of the 2005-2006 season has seen Ahonen in positions 2, 2, 5, 6, 3, and 2, which translates to some EUR 30,000 in prize money.
     
Even though Ahonen, who has secured 30 world cup event victories in his career, is yet to win an individual event this season, he is not worried about his performances. "I'm not that far behind the leader. In fact, I may be the only ski-jumper who is not worried about his jumping", Ahonen commented.
      Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the rest of the Finnish ski-jumpers. Aside from Ahonen's showings, the beginning of the season has been somewhat feeble for Team Finland.
      On Sunday, Harri Olli, Joonas Ikonen, Risto Jussilainen, Matti Hautamäki, and Janne Happonen finished in positions 19, 26, 27, 29 and 30 respectively. Tami Kiuru did not make it into the top 35 in the first round, and was eliminated from the second round of jumping. One factor behind the malaise has been the poor snow conditions at home; the relatively mild start to the winter in Finland has reduced the chances of getting in valuable practice jumps on local hills.
      Nevertheless, much thanks to Ahonen, Finland is still hanging on in the lead in World Cup team standings with 664 points.


Links:
  FIS Ski-Jumping
  FIS Biography Janne Ahonen

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