Lahti: A convincing victory of Norwegian team

Norway's team of Bjoern Einar Romoeren, Henning Stensrud, Daniel Forfang and Roar Ljoekelsoey made a convincing victory in HS 130 event held in Lahti, Finland. Home favourites, Finnish jumpers lost 27 points to Norwegians and had to settle for second place ahead of Austria. Despite Adam Małysz's efforts, Polish team could only take eighth place.

With all jumps over 120 metres, Norway's team with Henning Stensrud and Daniel Forfang, who had replaced Sigurd Pettersen and Lars Bystoel, managed to take the lead already after the first round, with 14.6 points over Finland. At the end of the second leg, Roar Ljoekelsoey secured the win of his team with the longest jump of the day (128 metres). With his first-round effort of 125 metres, he took the first place in the unofficial individual ranking.

The Norwegians have proved to be more consistent than the Finns, as huge efforts from Janne Ahonen (his 126 metres was the longest jump of the first round) and Matti Hautamaeki (125 and 127 metres) didn't let them beat Mika Kojonkoski's team.

Double gold medallists from Oberstdorf, the Austrians, weakened by the absence of Andi Widhoelzl, managed to edge out Germany for third place with an advantage of only 6.4 points.

This time even two tidy efforts from Adam Małysz (120,5 and 123 metres) couldn't lift Poland to a better place in the competition's standings. Together with two modest jumps from Robert Mateja (108 and 112,5 metres) and disastrous performances by Marcin Bachleda (110 and 100 metres) and Kamil Stoch (97,5 and 109 metres), Polish team's result was definitely not enough to trouble Japan or Russia. Poland finished in eight place, which was effectively the last one in the competition.