Jessica Jerome had her best event in a long time as she moved way up from a 15th place finish on Saturday at Rasnov. In the first round Jerome took advantage of some helping wind to put up a really strong distance score and accumulate 104.2 points and place fifth. She then improved on that in the final round going event farther with the wind in her face this time. Jerome scored a 115.8 on her second jump and moved all the way up to second overall where she finished with a 220. She wasn’t real close to first, 10 points back, but she also had a large gap on third place of eight points. It was the first time in the top three for Jerome in over two years and her best ever finish in a World Cup event.
The women have four more events this season and the next one will be in Oslo, Norway on Saturday, March 8th. Check back later in the week to WeSupportTheUS.com for coverage of that event.
Things didn’t last long for Nick Alexander and Anders Johnson on Sunday at the latest World Cup ski jumping event. Both men had their lowest scoring competitive jumps since the Olympics. The field overall had lower scores than the event on the same hill on Friday so they did move into the top 50 in the qualifying round. Alexander had the better distance of the two and was only 4.4 points away from qualifying in 47th place. Anders Johnson was right behind Alexander in 48th but was over five points behind him.
The next event on the ski jumping World Cup circuit is less than 200 miles away in Kuopio, Finland. It’ll begin with a qualification round on Monday with the main event on Tuesday. WeSupportTheUS.com will have coverage of that event later on Sunday once we have a start list.
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.
The US men have not really been a factor in the ski jumping competitions in the Olympics in a long time (just once since 1992 has the US had a top 25 finisher in an event). So with the debut of women’s ski jumping this year it was a chance to see the potential for that new event, and for the US that might be where the success comes from in the future. Two US competitors were in the top 15 and the one who didn’t, Sarah Hendrickson, was the World Champion last year at 18 but suffered a knee injury that hurt her Olympic chances.
Men’s Normal Hill
The US did advance three of their four jumpers to the first round on the normal hill but none were able to place higher than 34th there, missing out on the top 30 who advance to the final round. Nick Alexander was the best for the US in the event with a first round score of 116.0. Alexander’s 34th place finish was an improvement on his result from 2010 and the best for the US since 2002.
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”.
Jessica Jerome had her best event in a long time as she moved way up from a 15th place finish on Saturday at Rasnov. In the first round Jerome took advantage of some helping wind to put up a really strong distance score and accumulate 104.2 points and place fifth. She then improved on that in the final round going event farther with the wind in her face this time. Jerome scored a 115.8 on her second jump and moved all the way up to second overall where she finished with a 220. She wasn’t real close to first, 10 points back, but she also had a large gap on third place of eight points. It was the first time in the top three for Jerome in over two years and her best ever finish in a World Cup event.
