Piotr Zyla wins this summer’s first qualification

After the women were already jumping earlier today, the Grand Prix in Wisla (POL) also started for the world’s best ski jumpers in the evening.

The happy winner today was local hero Piotr Zyla, who posted a jump of 124.5 m and finished ahead of his two teammates Dawid Kubacki (121 m; 115.7 points) and Aleksander Zniszczol (121.5 m; 114.0 points).

The Polish success in hot temperatures of about 30°C was completed by Kamil Stoch in fourth, Maciej Kot in sixth, Pawel Wasek in eighth and Jakub Wolny in ninth place.

Thomas Lackner was the best of the Austrian team in fifth, and Karl Geiger came in seventh. Andreas Wellinger was 13th and achieved a good result today after the Bavarian, who claimed his maiden World Cup win in Wisla 2014, already had a fantastic jump on 136.5 m in the official training. So Wellinger seems to have a good chance to achieve top results in the two competitions on Saturday (3 pm CET) and Sunday (1 pm CET).

Niko Kytosaho was the best Finn in 14th, followed by Estonia’s Artti Aigro, who is training with the Finnish team. Naoki Nakamura was the best Japanese in tenth place. After the resignation of head coach Hideharu Miyahira, the team is now led by Masahiko Harada, but in Wisla, the Japanese jumpers are coached by Daiki Ito, who retired after last season.

Ryoyu Kobayashi and other stars are not competing in this opening event of the summer season. Markus Eisenbichler, Stefan Kraft, Halvor Egner Granerud, and Marius Lindvik are among those who are not participating in Wisla.

Due to four disqualifications (three at the start, one after the jump), there will only be 48 athletes in Saturday’s competition, which starts at 3 pm CET.

Full results