Gregor Schlierenzauer won the final event of the FIS Grand Prix in Hinzenbach. With an impressive performance and jumps on 96 m and 89.5 m the record World Cup winner came in clearly ahead of Peter Prevc and Kenneth Gangnes. Japanese Kento Sakuyama already secured the overall title before this final competition.

“Everything worked out perfectly in the first round so I could jump on a new hill record. It was a cool jump and I also had some luck. But still you have to show a good jump from gate 1, I was able to do that, even with a telemark and that's a great feeling. You need a strong and good take-off, especially on the normal hill. I'm a bit surprised that I could win my first competition this summer, but I also knew that my shape is not too bad. I'm very satisfied with how the training went and also with the equipment, even if there's still room for improvement. Now we have to do a good job in the remaining weeks of training and then we are ready for the winter."

Peter Prevc jumped on 89 m twice and scored a total of 234.6 points. The Slovene told later: "It was a really tough competition for everyone. The wind was quite strong and you needed some luck to be among the best. In the first round you needed a constant head wind during the whole jump. I made a little mistake at the take-off, that cost me two meters and that would have been enough to be almost in the Top 3 after the first round. In the second round I had some luck with the conditions because there was still head wind when I was jumping. I was second today, so for me it was a fair competition. Concerning the results, there's not much room for improvement in winter, but there still is when it comes to the technical and physical aspects."

Gangnes "very satisfied"

Kenneth Gangnes showed jumps on 91 m and 86 m and achieved his fourth podium result this summer in third. The Norwegian said: "Of course I'm really satisfied with this competition. My goal for this weekend was to be in the Top 10, so being on the podium is really good for me. It's a really nice hill, but the inrun is a bit different compared to the hills we jump on in training in Norway. The flying curve here is similar to bigger hills but it's still more fun to jump on the large hills. My main goal for the winter is to improve compared to last season and to establish myself in the Top 20 of the World Cup. Of course the Ski Flying World Championships are a highlight."

Best German was Andreas Wellinger, who closely missed the podium in fourth with 92 m and 86 m and 230.5 points. Overall World Cup winner Severin Freund, second after the first round, finished fifth, 1.1 points behind Wellinger, with 91 m and 86.5 m.

Strong team performance of Poland

Only 0.1 point behind Freund, double Olympic champion Kamil Stoch came in sixth, Grand Prix overall winner Kento Sakuyama was seventh with 229.1 points.

Although they had no athlete on the podium, Poland achieved a very good team result today with Dawid Kubacki (227.5 points) in eighth, Jan Ziobro (226.8 points) in tenth and Maciej Kot and Piotr Zyla in 11th and 14th.

World Champion Rune Velta was ninth with 227.3 points, his teammate Joachim Hauer finished 12th. Kenshiro Ito shared the 14th place with Piotr Zyla, Vladimir Zografski came in on a good 16th place this afternoon.

Poppinger scored points

Manuel Poppinger, who could only compete today because of Jakub Janda's disqualification in yesterday's qualification round, that was won by Schlierenzauer as well, came in 18th and scored some points in his fight for a spot on the Austrian World Cup team.

Harri Olli was the only Finn, who made the cut for the final round and was 20th, Gregor Deschwanden and Davide Bresadola scored some Grand Prix points for the teams of Switzerland and Italy in 28th and 29th.

Clear win for Sakuyama

Kento Sakuyama clearly won the overall title of the FIS Grand Prix with his total of 561 points, followed by Kenneth Gangnes (402 points) and Robert Kranjec (349 points), who did not participate in Hinzenbach.

Severin Freund took part in only four competitions, but still he is fourth with 325 points, with one competition more than the German, Dawid Kubacki is fifth with 281 points.

Germany won the Nation's Cup ahead of Poland and Japan.

The ski jumping World Cup season starts 54 days from now, on November 20th, in Klingenthal, Germany.

Source: fis-ski.com