The German ski jumpers around a very strong overall World Cup runner-up Richard Freitag won second place in the last team competition before the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
In Zakopane, the DSV eagles only had to admit defeat to hosts Poland and showed a clear improvement six days after their disappointing fourth place at the World Flight Championships in Oberstdorf.
With 1067.3 points, the brilliantly hung up Fridays (Aue/135.0+137.0 m) and Andreas Wellinger (Ruhpolding/134.0+134.0) as well as Markus Eisenbichler (Siegsdorf/130.5+129.0) and Stephan Leyhe (Willingen/130.0+127.0) were quite clearly behind Poland (1092.0) with Volksheld Kamil Stoch Third place went to Norway (1055.2)
However, the Norwegians, who had won the gold medal in Oberstdorf, had traveled to Zakopane without individual world champion Daniel Andre Tande (stomach and intestine infection) and had not entered the squad.
Austria (986.8) once again came fourth with a large gap to the podium finishes, ahead of Japan (954.4) and the Slovenes in second place in Oberstdorf (953.0).
On Sunday (16 o’ clock in the LIVETICKER) a single jump will take place in Zakopane. In the qualification, Eisenbichler were second and third on Friday after last year’s winner Stoch. Before the Winter Games in South Korea (9. till 25. February) two individual competitions are scheduled for the coming weekend in Willingen, Hesse.