After a disappointing qualification round on Friday that saw both Anders Johnson (54th) and Nick Alexander (57th) miss out on the first round by around 10 points they will get a second chance on the same hill as the World Cup will hold their second individual event in three days in Lahti. Alexander had a strong jump last week in the qualifying round in Falun scoring a 95.9 that would have been good enough to qualify in Lahti as well. We’ll see if he can find that kind of distance again. For Johnson he improved on his Falun jump in the first event in Lahti but still has more improvement to make if he hopes to advance from the qualification round.
WeSupportTheUS.com will have coverage of the results later on Sunday.
We were supposed to have two women taking part in the ski jumping is Rasnov on Saturday but only Jessica Jerome started the event as Lindsey Van was a DNS. Jerome placed 20th on her first jump as she was quite a bit off the pace of the top jumpers both in terms of distance and judges points. She was much better on her second jump and moved up to 15th overall.
The women will stick around to contest another ski jumping event on the same hill Sunday. Jessica Jerome will be the only one in the field for the US. We’ll see if she can put together two great jumps and perhaps post a top ten score. Come back to WeSupportTheUS.com tomorrow for the results of that event.
Anders Johnson had his best competitive jump since Sochi scoring an 85.6 but it was only good enough to place him 54th in the qualification round. He narrowly out jumped fellow American Nick Alexander who scored an 84.4 and placed 57th. They both were around 10 points out of qualification. They didn’t go as far as the 40th place jumper but they also lost a few points due to the wind being stronger at their backs when they jumped.
Saturday will bring a team event in Lahti but the US is not among the ten teams of four competing. Another individual event will be held on the same hill on Sunday and I expect that the Anders Johnson and Nick Alexander will be competing in that, but I have yet to see a start list and so no confirmation on that.
The women’s Ski Jumping World Cup circuit is back underway with two jumps in Rasnov, Romania this weekend. Just two Americans are in the field, Jessica Jerome (tenth in Sochi) and Lindsey Van (15th in Sochi). Jerome also enters the week tied for 17th in the season standings after 13 events.
The field of 44 will get competition underway at 8 AM ET with the first round narrowing the field for a final round of jumping to immediately follow. I’ll be back with an update on the first day of competition tomorrow.
Nick Alexander finished 45th and Anders Johnson finished 61st earlier this week in a Ski Jumping World Cup event in Falun and now they have a chance to improve on that in Lahti, Finland on Friday. The event will begin with a qualification round with 65 men competing for 40 spots in the first round later in the day. Alexander reached the first round in the Falun event. The final round, featuring the top 30 from the first first round, will wrap up things on Friday.
Saturday will bring a team event in Lahti while another individual event will be held on the same hill on Sunday.
Nick Alexander wasn’t able to duplicated his jump from Tuesday and finished 45th at the World Cup event in Falun. Alexander did go father than he had in the qualification round but that was due to a wind change that was now at his back. He was a large 16 point gap behind the 30th place jumper, the last to make the final round.
The next FIS Ski Jumping World Cup event is in Lahti, Finland starting on Friday. I presume that some Americans will be in the field but I have yet to see a start list of who exactly will be there. I’ll have further coverage when I know more.
Both Anders Johnson and Nick Alexander started the qualification round on Tuesday vying for two of 40 spots in the first round on Wednesday. Johnson traveled just 104m on his jump so despite decent judges scores he only scored an 82.1 and was over 13 points short of a qualification spot. Alexander soared 111.5m and just barely squeaked into the field as he tied Manuel Fettner for 39th and the last two spots in the field. He was just 0.2 points ahead of 41st.
Alexander will now take part in the First Round on Wednesday. There’s no indication on the website that there is a final round, but one would assume there is one (probably for the top 30) based on the term “first round”.
The next stop on the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup is Falun, Sweden. The US has two athletes, fresh off their Sochi competition, in the field. Both Anders Johnson and Nick Alexander will start competition today with the qualification round. There are 64 competitors from 19 nations at the event. The training jumps happened earlier this morning with the qualification round at 12 PM ET. The event wraps up on Wednesday.
We’ll have coverage of the results of the qualification round later today.
