Amazing weekend in Planica!

The weekend in Planica was a fantastic skiflying feast with long flights, new hill records, an awesome audience and beautiful sunshine. As usual it was a wonderful ending of the season.

Planica started really great with Johansson` winning of the qualificationand made himself a special birthday present. What for Robert was a joy, was for Johann André a sorrow. He was the actual winner, but he was disqualified cause of his suit. Damm! So he couldn`t start on friday.

But mercifully the other lads performed really strong and the team gathered speed on Friday: Robert Johansson became 8th (first round: 228,0 meters, final round: 225,0 meters, total score: 437,3 points), Anders Fannemel as 9th (first round: 243,0 meters, final round: 215,0 meters, total score: 430,5 points), Daniel-André Tande on place 13th (first round: 219,5 meters, final round: 233,0 meters, total score: 422,2 points) and Andreas Stjernen as 14th (first round: 219,5 meters, final round: 228,0 meters, total score: 420,1 points). All four under the Top 15. Really good result.

The climax of the weekend was yesterday, because in the trial round Robert "The Mustache" Johansson flight on 250 meters!! Just awesome. And with this flight he was the first jumper, who jump on two skiflying hills over 250 meters. Incredible, what this man achieved for widths in this season. But it`s seems to be bewitched, because in the final round of the team competition Stefan Kraft from Austria surpassed again Johansson. A déjà vu from the Raw Air in Vikersund. Nevertheless it only counts that Robert was the first! Indeed Kraft couldn`t keep the new hill record of 251 meters very long, because Kamil Stoch from Poland surpassed him with half a meter some minutes later. Till the next season will this record definitely last.

And the second best thing of this competition day was the victory of the Norwegian Team. Robert Johansson (first round: 246,0 meters, final round: 246,5 meters), Johann André Forfang (first round: 237,0 meters, final round: 233,0 meters), Anders Fannemel (first round: 229,5 meters, final round: 233,0 meters) and Andreas Stjernen have shown really strong jumps. Only the first jump of Stjernen on 216,5 meters was a little breakaway. But with 227,5 meters in the final round he did much better. So at the end the lads could be more than happy.

Into today`s competition has assorted a bit melancholy, because it was the very last competition of the season 2016/2017. Cause of the worse weather the wind conditions weren`t so good and despite the Norwegian Eagles have shown good flights: Robert Johansson on 232,0 meters, Johann André Forfang on 225,0 meters, Anders Fannemel on 224,0 meters and Andreas Stjernen on 224,0 meters. Before the final round the wind conditions have worsens again and after eight jumpers the competition was cancelled. And so Johansson landed on place 7th, Forfang on place 9th, Fannemel on place 10th and Stjernen on place 13th.

If you`re asking what happened to Daniel-André Tande? He has been disqualified from his own fault. So annoying! He was up on the hill and his suit was already controlled. After this okay you aren`t allowed to touch your suit. If you do this you`ll get disqualified. No idea why Tande did offend against this rule. Head coach Alexander was really disappointed cause of this move. full results of the qualification: http://medias3.fis-ski.com/pdf/2017/JP/3942/2017JP3942RLQ.pdf

full results of the individual competition on Friday: http://medias4.fis-ski.com/pdf/2017/JP/3943/2017JP3943RL.pdf

full results of the team competition: http://medias1.fis-ski.com/pdf/2017/JP/3944/2017JP3944RL.pdf

full results of the individual competition on Sunday: http://medias3.fis-ski.com/pdf/2017/JP/3945/2017JP3945RL.pdf

photo: berkutschi.com