Severin Freund won the final competition in Willingen and achieved the third podium result for Germany in the third competition in front of the home crowd. Freund took the win with jumps on 149.5 m and 146 m and completed the set of medals after his third place in the first individual competition on Friday and the second place with the team on Saturday.

Severin Freund said afterwards: “It's difficult to find the right words for these emotions. The first jump was not perfect at the take-off, the second one was better. When I saw the laser line far down the hill I thought I have to fly a bit longer. You never know what happens on such a big hill. I'm very happy that I could win. We have a great team spirit and everyone plays a part in such a success. Our team has a huge potential.”

Velta close behind

Norway's Rune Velta missed his first win in the World Cup by only one point. The third place went to Roman Koudelka. Rune Velta said: “I was able to improve my performance and jumped consistently. Of course it's a bit disappointing that it was not enough to win, but I was jumping really well today. As a team we can fight for podium results at the World Championships, Gold would be nice. And we can also fight for the medals in the individual competitions.”

Rune Velta posted jumps on 145 m and 143 m. Roman Koudelka scored 252.4 points with 146 m and 139 m.

The Czech said after the competition: “It was very good today, I had a positive feeling and I'm optimistic for the next competitions. I'm very satisfied and I'm sure that this was not my last podium result. I like Willingen, the atmosphere is great and the hill is also nice.”

With jumps on 145.5 m and 136 m and 247.5 points the fourth place went to Slovenia's Peter Prevc. Anders Fannemel in fifth with 149 m and 134.5 m (246.8 points) and Tom Hilde (230.4 points) in tenth completed the great result of the Norwegian team.

Kraft best Austrian

Stefan Kraft, second after the first round, finished sixth with 149 m and 134.5 m and 244.5 points. With this result the 4-Hills-Tournament winner was by far the best Austrian today. Michael Hayboeck in 18th, Gregor Schlierenzauer in 20th and Manuel Poppinger 22nd are not in their best shape before the upcoming World Championships.

The seventh place went to Kamil Stoch with 242.9 points. 8.3 points behind, Marinus Kraus was eighth. Noriaki Kasai came in ninth with 233.4 points, his teammate Daiki Ito was eleventh. Behind Jernej Damjan, Markus Eisenbichler finished 13th. Richard Freitag was 15th in the final competition of a successful weekend for the German team. Piotr Zyla could also gain some self-confidence in 14th.

Maeaettae with upward trend

Finland's Jarkko Maeaettae achieved his second-best result this season in 17th, Gregor Deschwanden came in on a good 19th place. Davide Bresadola in 24th and Nick Alexander in 27th scored some World Cup points for the teams of Italy and the USA.

Stefan Kraft defended the Yellow Bib and leads the overall World Cup with 1083 points, Peter Prevc (1054 points) follows in second. Roman Koudelka is now third with 916 points, close ahead of Severin Freund (913 points).

The next World Cup competitions will be held in Titisee-Neustadt next weekend, as a replacement for Liberec. These will be the last large hill competitions before the World Championships.