Stefan Hula of Poland won the qualification for the second-to-last competition of the FIS Grand Prix 2017. Under good conditions on HS 94 in Hinzenbach, Hula showed a jump of 90.5 m and scored 126.9 points. Close behind Hula, Austria's Stefan Kraft came in second with 89 m and 126.4 points.

Polish team as strong as usual

Besides Hula, Dawid Kubacki and Piotr Zyla showed a great performance in the qualification and finished third and fourth. With Kamil Stoch in eleventh, the athletes of head coach Stefan Horngacher presented themselves in a fantastic shape after they took a break from competition in the last couple of weeks.

Sebastian Colloredo of Italy once again proved his very good shape this summer with the fifth place today. Best German athlete was Andreas Wellinger in seventh, he was followed by Junshiro Kobayashi of Japan, who is fighting for the Grand Prix overall title against Dawid Kubacki and Slovenia's Anze Lanisek. 

Except for youngster Constantin Schmid, all other German jumpers could qualify for the competition: Stephan Leyhe in 13th, Karl Geiger in 24th and Andreas Wank in 35th.

Overall leader Lanisek fell in training

Slovenia's Anze Lanisek, the overall leader of the Grand Prix, provided a moment of shock in the first training round with a spectacular crash right after the landing of his jump. Fortunately, the 21-year-old didn't suffer any injuries. Lanisek easily qualified for the competition with a jump of 87.5 m.

Czech team as "one-man show"

Out of the five-member team of coach Richard Schallert, only Roman Koudelka made the cut for the competition with his 88 m jump. Two Czech ski jumpers, the newly crowned national champion Tomas Vancura and his teammate Viktor Polasek, were disqualified today because their boots did not meet the rules. Jakub Janda and Vojtech Stursa jumped on 79 m respectively 79.5 m and could not qualify. 

The competition in Hinzenbach will start on Sunday at 2:00 pm CET.

Source: fis-ski.com