German team win ski jumping World Cup event after thrilling finish

The German team of Constantin Schmid, Pius Paschke, Stephan Leyhe and Karl Geiger scored 984.1 points, just 2.3 points clear of Slovenia’s Cene Prevc, Timi Zajc, Peter Prevc and Anze Lanisek.

The result went right down to the wire and was in the balance going into the jumps from the fourth athlete on each team.

Schmid, the 20-year-old who has been a key part of the Germany team this season, said: "I think it was a very good competition, especially in the first round when we all jumped well.

“In the second round, I had a big mistake and a bad jump, so from my personal perspective, the competition was not that good.

“But the entire team did very well and we managed to win, so we are very happy.”

Slovenia’s Zajc posted the longest jump of the day with 130m and his teammate Prevc said: "If somebody would have told us before today's competition that we would be second, we would have been really happy.

“Now it's a bit disappointing because we were fighting for the first place.

“But in the end, I think that tomorrow we will be happy about this result.

“The final round today, when I was waiting for the other guys to jump, felt like the longest round ever to me.”

Austria finished only 2.5 points behind Slovenia to take third spot, with Norway, Japan and Poland next up.

Germany have now won 15 World Cup team events – only Austria (30) and Finland (25) have won more.

Sportsbeat 2020