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On the hill in Predazzo where he captured the World-Championship title a couple of years ago Adam Malysz also won the Grand-Prix competition this evening. The Polish idol showed jumps of 128.5 m and 129 m and scored a total of 265.5 points. With that he could relegate Swiss Andreas Küttel, who jumped 126 m and 128.5 m for 262.6 points, to the second place. After he had missed the final in Hinterzarten, Jakub Janda (CZE) could improve his performance a lot today and finished third with 254.7 points (125.5m/126m). He also got the extra € 1000 for being the "Man of the Day". 4-time World-Champion Martin Schmitt (GER) achieved 249.9 points and showed that he might be on his way back to the top with a very good fifth place today. 21-year-old David Lazzaroni from France also had a very good competition and could achieve a Top 10 result as 9th. In absence of the teams from Norway and Finland also athletes like Andrea Morassi (13.), Sebastian Colloredo (19.) and Martin Mesik (24.) had good jumps and scored valueable points. Austria's Andreas Widhölzl still has some problems and could not advance to the final. It was also not a great day for his young teammate Gregor Schlierenzauer. A fall in the first round made a top result impossible. Detailed results >>

Germany's Georg Späth won his first Grand-Prix competition ever this afternoon in Hinterzarten. In this close event on the HS 108 the 25-year-old showed jumps of 107.5 m and 103 m and reached a total of 275.0 points. The leader after the first round, Andreas Kofler from Austria ended up second with 270.5 points (108m/100.5m). The third best today also came from Austria with Gregor Schlierenzauer. The junior World-Champion posted two very good and constant jumps of 102.5 m and 102 m for 258.5 points. Swiss Simon Amman, who had the longest jump in today's trial round (108m) came in fourth, followed by young Finn Harri Olli and Adam Malysz. A good performance today was also shown by Norwegian Anders Jacobsen who finished 8th and was the best placed athlete of his team that will now leave out the next competitions and instead train in Oberstdorf (GER) next week. Well known names like last winter's overall World-Cup winner Jakub Janda, Martin Koch, Sigurd Pettersen and Martin Schmitt failed to make the second round cut. The competition took place in front of about 5000 spectators under a bit changing but fair conditions. Winner Georg Späth was also awarded with the prize-money of € 1000 for the "Man of the day". Detailed results >>

The opening of this year's Summer Grand-Prix took place under very equal conditions this evening and brought a clear victory for the team from Austria. Wolfgang Loitzl, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Manuel Fettner and Andreas Kofler could score a total of 1047.5 points on in Hinterzarten (GER). Finland, with Tami Kiuru, Harri Olli, Janne Happonen and Matti Hautamäki came in second with 1020.0 points. The third place went to Germany (Michael Neumayer, Martin Schmitt, Georg Späth, Michael Uhrmann), only 7.5 points behind. The longest jump of the competition was shown by Andreas Kofler with 106 m. He showed, like his teammates, that he is in a very good shape already this summer. In opposite to the Norwegian team of head-coach Mika Kojonkoski in which Tom Hilde and Anders Jacobsen got the chance to show their talent after good training performances yesterday. The two youngsters and Lars Bystøl and Roar Ljøkelsøy came in only on place seven beaten also by the teams from the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. After a very dissapointing last winter the Slovenian team, with the new head-coach Vasja Bajc, is also not in a good shape yet and finished 8th. The individual event will take place tomorrow at 3:00 pm CET. Detailed results >>

After a couple of months with no competition for the top jumpers the 13th edition of the FIS Summer-Grand-Prix is now about to start with an individual event in Hinterzarten (GER) on Saturday. “This year’s Grand-Prix takes place against a background of change”, said FIS Race-director Walter Hofer and adds that “there are new coaches in some countries and we will also notice a change of generation in different teams.“ Last summer’s overall winner, Jakub Janda (CZE) has a new coach with Austrian Richard Schallert and he mentioned that his best athlete is already in good shape. Also Lars Bystøl (NOR) is looking forward to competing. "I never invested so much in a summer preparation. I feel that I made a step forward. We get new suits this week and I hope it'll work well from the beginning", he told. Thomas Morgernstern (AUT) can not take part in the first competitions because of his injury but he plans his comeback in Zakopane. Finland’s Janne Ahonen will also not come to Germany. The 29-year-old has not decided yet where he will participate this summer. For the first time there will be an overall ranking, called the 4-Nations-Grand Prix, for the competitions in Hinterzarten, Einsiedeln, Courchevel and Zakopane. The winner will get gold ingots worth about SFR 12 000.

Janne Ahonen won the first event of the Finlandia Tour in Lahti on July 22 with a total of 247.0 points (96.5/93.5m). Janne Happonen jumped 92 m and 94 m and finished second only 2,4 points behind. Tami Kiuru landed on the third place with 91.5 m and 93.5 m for 239.5 points. Matti Hautamäki came in fifth, followed by his brother Jussi as sixth. The second competition of this series this Tuesday in Kuopio was won by Happonen (124.5m/122.5m; 247.6 pts.) ahead of the Norwegians Anders Jacobsen (123m/122.5m; 242.9 pts.) and Roar Ljøkelsøy (124.5m/120m; 242.1 pts.). The places four to seven also went to the team of Mika Kojonkoski with Tom Hilde (224.7 pts.), Sigurd Pettersen (224.5 pts.), Lars Bystøl (221.7 pts.) and Björn Einer Romøren (220.2 pts.). Matti Hautamäki won the final event of the Tour in Vuokatti today with jumps of 99.5 m and 99 m (269.5 pts.). The other two spots on the podium were taken by Veli-Matti Lindström with 252.0 points (98m/94.5m) and Kalle Keituri (91.5m/96m; 246.0 pts.). Janne Ahonen did not take part in the last two competitions and instead pursuided his Drag-Racing career. The Top 10 in the overall ranking are Janne Happonen, Matti Hautamäki, Tami Kiuru, Jens Salumäe, Harri Olli, Kalle Keituri, Jussi Hautamäki, Risto Jussilainen, Kimmo Yliriesto and Veli-Matti Lindström.

For some of the Finnish jumpers the preparation for next season was a bit difficult recently. “We have had some problems with the lift in Kuopio and we have jumped only twice so far. In the camp of the B- team we weren´t able to jump either because of strong winds” Arttu Lappi told ski-jumping.net. “In Rovaniemi we were training a couple of times but there I concentrated more on physics. Because I have done only 30 jumps so far this summer, it might be too early to say anything about my shape in jumping but my physical shape is looking good right now.” The 22-year-old also expressed his views of last winter, that didn't went as good as he wanted. “I had quite big expectations for the last winter which seemed to be a bit too optimistic for the first season after an injury. Anyway I´m happy that at least I was at the level where I was able to fight for the top positions in the COC. A third place was my best result there and in the Finnish championships I was 8th twice.” About his goals for the summer season Lappi said that “I want to get into good shape and stay healthy. This year I want to start the season on snow better than in the previous years. I don´t take too much pressure now in the summer time but of course I would like to jump well.”

Germany’s Michael Uhrmann suffered an injury in training last week. The 28-year-old tore a ligament in his left ankle joint and although the doctors have decided against surgery he will have to take a break of four to six weeks. “It is not so bad. I will change my training plan to stay fit. I am confident, that I’ll be able to jump again in a few weeks”, he said.
The Italian skijumping team of the new head coach and former world-class jumper Roberto Cecon, who followed Hannu Lepistö in this position, is training at home in Predazzo right now for a couple of days. The athletes who work with Cecon there are Marco Beltrame, Alessio Bolognani, Stefano Chiapolino, Sebastian Colloredo and Andrea Morassi.
The US women skijumpers are of course very happy with the decision of the FIS to include the sport in the program of the Nordic Championships. "For us, it's definitely more of a drive. We've always been really dedicated athletes, but now there's something behind really pushing us. We have even more of a desire and drive” said Alissa Johnson, the sister of the 2006 Olympican Anders Johnson. Since the women are now also part of the US ski team they will get more support from the official side, especially in sport science told their coach Casey Colby.

Austrian youngster Thomas Morgenstern injured himself during the physical training last week. A computed tomography showed yesterday that he tore his intraarticular ligament in his right ankle joint. According to the doctors the double Olympic champion from Torino will be forced to take a break for about six to eight weeks. “An injury is of course always a bad thing, but at least I have a lot of other things to do at the moment” said the 19-year-old who now wants to focus on finishing his school and taking the final exams.
The FIS Nordic World Cup Organizers’ Meeting took place in Rust (GER) last weekend. There Representatives of over thirty organizers of World-Cup, Grand-Prix and Continental-Cup events met to share experiences and dicuss with various companies and the media. At this meeting also an innovation for the upcoming season was presented. Starting with the 2006/07 season a “Man of the Day” will receive an extra prize money of € 2000 (sponsored by “Manner”) at every World-Cup event. This award will go to the best ranked athlete of the competition who is not among the Top 15 in the overall World-Cup ranking.