Austria’s Olympic silver medalist Andreas Kofler won the opening leg of the Four Hills ski jump event on Tuesday on home snow at Oberstdorf.
Kofler garnered 265.2 points from jumps of 125m and 134m to see off Janne Ahonen of Finland, a five-time competition winner who was returning to the circuit at the age of 32 after 18 months away from the circuit following an initial decision to retire.
Ahonen’s form suggests that he can still harbor real hopes of landing an elusive gold medal at the Vancouver Games in February.
PHOTO: AFP
On Tuesday, he scored 253.3 points off leaps of 116.5m and 137m.
Thomas Morgenstern of Austria jumped 124.5m and 126.5m to take third place with 250.3 points and edge defending champion and compatriot Wolfgang Loitzl off the podium.
Loitzl could manage no more than 245.4 points after twice jumping 124m.
Nonetheless, he still managed to acquit himself better than Swiss star Simon Ammann, as the current leader of the season standings and double Olympic gold medal winner in 2002 could only place fifth with 236.6 points.
Ammann appears to be jinxed in the Four Hills. Last year he failed in his ambition to become the first Swiss to win the event, a disappointing eighth place in the third round at Innsbruck ending his hopes.
Austrian Gregor Schlierenzauer, the defending World Cup champion, failed to scale the heights as the 19-year-old could only come in ninth with 228.8 points having only managed jumps of 118m and 123m.
Another Austrian, Lukas Mueller, Slovenia’s Jernej Damjan and Poland’s Adam Malysz all managed to best Schlierenzauer, who stands second in the World Cup standings to Ammann with Kofler third.
The next Four Hills challenge comes on New Year’s Day at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, before an event at Innsbruck on Sunday and the fourth leg of the quartet at Bischofshofen on Jan. 6.
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
Italian defender Marco Curto has been banned for 10 matches for racially abusing South Korean forward Hwang Hee-chan while playing for Como 1907 against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a pre-season friendly in July. Curto, who is on loan from Como to Serie B club Cesena, would serve half of the punishment immediately with the other half suspended for two years. “The player Marco Curto was found responsible for discriminatory behavior and sanctioned with a 10-match suspension,” a FIFA spokesperson said. “The player is ordered to render community services and undergo training and education with an organization approved by FIFA.” Wolves said the club would
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
RSS