Winter Sports Round-up: Hautamäki and Manninen score double victories

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Finnish ski-jumpers led by Matti Hautamäki managed to spoil the weekend for the 40,000-strong Polish crowd, who had gathered in Zacopane over the weekend to cheer their favourite Adam Malysz in the two FIS World Cup events.
      On Saturday, Matti Hautamäki, Tami Kiuru, and Janne Ahonen swept the table of medals before Malysz, who landed in fourth place behind the Finnish trio.
      Yet another Finn, Janne Happonen, who was in 2nd place behind Hautamäki after the first round, finish sixth, adding to Finland's success. Another 1.1 points to Happonen's score would have brought in a quadruple victory for Finland.
      Finland's last triple victory came in March 2001 in an Oberstdorf ski-flying competition.
     
On Sunday, Hautamäki, who delighted in his newly-found form just two weeks before the Torino Olympics, repeated his Saturday victory. This time Janne Ahonen, who has been in solid form throughout the season, was the runner-up.
      Ahonen, who secured his fourth Four Hills Tournament victory earlier this month, has produced nearly one hundred World Cup podium finishes in his career.
      The bronze spot in Sunday's event went to Austria's Thomas Morgenstern.
      The weekend was understandably somewhat cheerless for the Polish people for a reason far surpassing the joys and disappointments of any sporting event. According to the latest figures, at least 66 people lost their lives in Saturday's roof-collapse disaster in Katowice.
     
Nordic Combined specialist Hannu Manninen made history in Seefeld, Austria, by producing victories both in Saturday's sprint event and in Sunday's 15 km event, thus securing his 11th victory for this season, and - more importantly - clinching his third consecutive overall World Cup title.
      Manninen now has 1,264 World Cup points, more than twice the score of the current runner-up, Magnus Moan (605 points) of Norway.
      Manninen, 27, is the first Finnish man to secure three consecutive World Cup titles in a Nordic ski discipline (cross-country skiing, ski-jumping, Nordic Combined). Among the women, Marjo Matikainen-Kallström managed to produce the same in cross-country in 1986-1988.
     
Manninen, who is not the best of jumpers, admitted that yesterday's victory did not come easily. He started the 15-kilometre skiing component two minutes and eighteen seconds behind hill winner Christoph Bieler of Austria.
      On the track, though, Manninen is hard to beat. One by one, he picked off those who started before him, and finished first for the seventh consecutive time, beating Todd Lodwick of the United States by a comfortable margin of 10.2 seconds. Bieler secured third place, trailing 17.5 seconds behind Manninen.
      Manninen, who has never won an individual Olympic medal, heads for the Torino Olympics as a hotter than hot favourite. His arch-rival Ronny Ackermann of Germany skipped the Seefeld games and concentrated on practising instead. Ackermann won both individual events in the World Championships last winter. Captions:


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Manninen victory show continues at Harrachov (23.1.2006)
  Winter Sports Round-up: Ahonen furious, Manninen keeps winning; womens relay team wins in cross-country skiing, and Palander continues good form (16.1.2006)
  Weekend Sports Round-Up: Ahonen makes ski-jumping history (9.1.2006)

Links:
  FIS

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