Akito Watabe prevails in difficult PCR in Klingenthal

It took one and a half hours to complete the Provisional Competition Round and Qualification on a snowy, wet and windy night at the Vogtlandarena in Klingenthal but in the end, World Cup leader Akito Watabe prevailed: 134 metres and 135.5 points carried the Japanese to the top of the result list.

Following 18 seconds behind him in case the PCR will be used as the base for a cross-country start list this weekend was Jan Schmid, who showed 131 metres (131.1 p.). Fabian Rießle continued in strong jumping shape on rank three, +0:36 seconds behind Watabe and with a jump of 127 metres and 126.6 points.

Teammate Johannes Rydzek was strong as well and claimed position four with 127.5 metres (+0:46). Also in the Top Ten: Willi Denifl, Lukas Klapfer, Manuel Faißt, Mario Seidl, Go Yamamoto and Bernhard Gruber, who even shared the ninth position with 119.2 points and a delay of one minute an five seconds.

The changing wind conditions also claimed some victims like for example talented jumpers Espen Andersen and Eric Frenzel. The Norwegian landed at only 113, Frenzel even at 110.5 meters, ranks 27 and 41 respectively.

12 athletes did not qualify for tomorrow’s event: Ben Loomis, Stephen Schuman and Jasper Good of team USA, Leon Sarc and Gasper Brecl from Slovenia, Estonia’s Karl Tiirma, local hero David Welde, Wojciech Marusarz and Pawel Twardosz from Poland, Ukraine’s Viktor Pasichnyk and Czech Republic’s Jan Vytrval and Lukas Danek. Italian Denis Parolari was disqualified due to non-regular ski jumping boots.