Ski jumping Tour de Pologne – controversies and emotions
Everything sooner or later goes by and the ski jumping “Tour de Pologne” went quickly to the end as well. These were competitions full of historic moments, surprises, great atmosphere and controversies – five days packed with a range of emotions, things that can only be found at sporting areas.
Wisla, which hosted the first out of three competitions in Poland, had a very difficult task to fulfil. As the event on 9th January 2013 was the first ever World Cup competition organized on Adam Malysz’s hill, the organizers had to cope with the scrutiny of people’s eyes. In my opinion, their effort unfortunately did not fully pay off and the idea of including Wisla into the World Cup calendar has to be thought over again.
As beautiful as this small mountain city is, the atmosphere around the event did not fully reflect its character. One of the many problems was misinformation about the tickets. While the tourist information centre claimed they have been sold out and the competition could only be watched on the big screen in the city centre, eventually there was no problem with officially buying them at the desk in front of the hill.
Another problem occurred when “trying” to watch the event live. Word trying is used here on purpose, as getting a clear view on the hill was impossible. The front of the sector with a view on the massive screen and the back with a view purely on the flight phase, made it very uncomfortable for the fans to fully enjoy the event.
Apart from that, an unfortunate incident of some of the athletes being robbed a night before the competition and all the ridiculous gossips surrounding it did not help the historic event to be seen as a massive success.
During Gregor Schlierenzauer’s, current World Cup One step behind him landed German Richard Freitag, collecting 252.2 points (131 m and 126.5 m), 12.2 points behind Bardal, while another Norwegian, Rune Velta, took the last spot on the podium after his jumps on 127 m and 126 m (251 points).leader’s absence due to an illness, it was Anders Bardal, last winter’s World Cup winner, who won the competition with his jumps on 130 m and 128 m. Although Bardal took the third place in this season’s overall classification, this was his first win this winter.
One step behind him landed German Richard Freitag, collecting 252.2 points (131 m and 126.5 m), 12.2 points behind Bardal, while another Norwegian, Rune Velta, took the last spot on the podium after his jumps on 127 m and 126 m (251 points).
During a very windy competition as the best athlete from the Polish team emerged Piotr Zyla, who took 6th place with his quite regular jumps on 125 m and 123 m (240.5 points). This was also Zyla’s best World Cup result, which together with his funny statements during post-event interviews made him a new Polish hero.
The next day was a quite tricky – probably not as much for the athletes as for the fans, who after a very late finish last night, had to move from Wisla to Zakopane in time to get to see the trainings and qualifications for the next competition. A couple of hours of sleep, early wake-up and at least one change to get to the capital of Polish mountains did not help the crowds to enthusiastically take part in next day’s events. However, the wind helped many to get some rest, as it caused the cancellation of the qualification round on Thursday.
On Friday 11th January the next historical event took place, as it was the first ever World Cup Team Event organized in Poland. The final results could be found as a bit surprising but definitely positive for the host team (Piotr Zyla, Kamil Stoch, Maciej Kot and Krzysztof Mietus), which for most of the time led the classification. It was Krzysztof Mietus’ jump on 118 m, which settled the result in the Slovenian’s (Jurij Tepes, Peter Prevc, Robert Kranjec and Jaka Hvala) favour and pushed the Poles of the top spot to the second place.
Austrians Wolfgang Loitzl, Andreas Kofler, Thomas Morgenstern and Stefan Kraft grabbed the last spot on the podium, 32.4 points behind Slovenians and 23.3 points behind the Polish team. The winners of last winter’s Team World Cup still seem to suffer a slight slump in form before the fast approaching World Championships.
The second individual competition, which took place on Saturday, was definitely Norwegian day, as the athletes from this country grabbed two places on the podium. Both Anders Jacobsen (128.5 m and 131.5 m) on first and Anders Bardal (132.5 m and 132 m) on second delivered stable performances leaving Pole Kamil Stoch the third place. The leader of the host country, with his jumps on 133 m and 127 m collected 268.7 points, which was only 4.6 points behind Jasobsen and 2.9 points behind Bardal.
After missing on two competitions in Poland, Gregor Schlierenzauer (127.5 m and 129 m) took the 8th place and remained the World Cup leader in front of Anders Bardal and Anders Jacobsen.
Zakopane due to its already established position and well-known fantastic atmosphere attracted much more fans than Wisla, especially during Saturday’s competition. As always the crowds supported every single jumper, hundreds of national and international flags were waving in the air and the party atmosphere gave many people the creeps. Definitely, Wisla shouldn’t give up, as it has a perfect example to follow and fans, who just need a bit of convincing that competitions in Malysz’s city could get more enjoyable to watch, so they can focus on creating an amazing atmosphere and having a great time.
