This summer's FIS Grand Prix starts with an individual competition in Courchevel (FRA) on Saturday. The best in the qualification for this competition on Friday evening was Maciej Kot. The Pole posted a jump on 128.5 m and scored a total of 116.2 points.
Clearly behind the winner, Jaka Hvala of Slovenia came in second with 124.5 m and 106.6 points. Local hero Vincent Descombes Sevoie presented himself in a very good shape in front of his home crowd and was third with 124.5 m and 105.4 points.
Kilian Peier came in fourth and can be satisfied with his start in the summer season. "We trained differently than last year and it's going really well for me so far. We arrived here Monday evening and were able to make a few very good jumps here since then", the Swiss told.
Clemens Aigner was the best of the Austrians in fifth, with Jakub Wolny in sixth, yet another Polish athlete came in among the best in this qualification. Lukas Hlava of the Czech Republic finished seventh, followed the second best Swiss Gregor Deschwanden and Ryoyu Kobayashi.
Behind the young Japanese, Halvor Egner Granerud came in tenth and was the best of the Norwegians, who had a difficult start of the GP 2016. Their skis didn't arrive in France on time and so the team of Sport 2000 and Peter Slatnar had to provide them with four new pair of skis in order to allow them to compete.
Many disqualifications at the opening
Of the 53 participants in Courchevel, seven athletes, among them World Champion Rune Velta, Harri Olli and Manuel Poppinger, were disqualified because their suits were not compliant to the rules. This means that only 46 jumpers will compete on Saturday.
FIS equipment controller Sepp Gratzer explains this disqualifications with a change of the rules, according to which a non-elastic band has to be sewed in at the waist of the jumping suits to prevent dragging down the suits. "The position of this band was not correct, resp. the suit was too big at the defined position of the band. The tolerance of 3 cm of the suit measurement was exceeded", said Gratzer.
The dominator of last winter, Peter Prevc, is taking a break from competition after he participated in the COC in Kranj two weeks ago and is currently training in Slovenia. He plans to compete again in the Grand Prix in Wisla next week.
The first competition of the FIS Grand Prix 2016 will take place on Saturday at 6:00 pm CET (Trial round: 5:00 pm CET).
Source:fis-ski.com
