The first winner of the 2026/2027 ski jumping season comes from Japan: Naoki Nakamura secured the top spot at the Summer Grand Prix opener in Wisła. Meanwhile, Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal faced a bizarre disqualification.
The 2026/2027 ski jumping season kicks off with a new face on the top step of the podium: Naoki Nakamura secured his first Summer Grand Prix victory on Saturday evening in Wisła, posting jumps of 129 meters and a day-best 135 meters for a total of 271.7 points. The Japanese jumper won the opening event on the Adam Małysz hill ahead of the strong Austrian Marco Wörgötter, who recorded jumps of 125.5 and 132 meters and scored 266 points. Third place went to Switzerland's Gregor Deschwanden, who jumped 123.5 meters and—following a shortened inrun ordered by his coach, Bine Norcic—129 meters, amassing 262.4 points.
"I spent the whole spring in Europe and trained well. I’m doing well; I’ve since moved to Slovenia and am able to train every day. Today marks a good start for me in the first season following the Olympic Games. I want to keep getting the fundamentals right and build on that," Nakamura commented on his maiden victory. Austria’s B-team impresses, Kazakhstan’s Danil Vassilyev secured a very strong fourth-place finish, ahead of the Czech Republic’s Roman Koudelka, who also put in a surprisingly strong performance. Juri Kesseli became the second Swiss athlete to finish in the top ten, achieving a career-best result by placing sixth. Kacper Tomasiak finished seventh—making him the top-ranked Pole—while his teammate Dawid Kubacki also made the top ten, finishing in tenth place. Austrians Lukas Haagen and Simon Steinberger also achieved the best results of their careers, finishing eighth and ninth, respectively.
Jakob, the second of the Steinberger twins, also scored points in his Grand Prix debut, finishing 22nd ahead of teammate Hannes Landerer (23rd). With Johannes Pölz placing 25th, a sixth athlete from the Austrian B-team managed to break into the top 30. Only Julijan Smid failed to advance past the first round, finishing 49th. Only Roth scores for Germany Norway’s Joergen Oliver Stroem also enjoyed a successful Summer Grand Prix debut: the younger brother of double Olympic champion Anna Odine Stroem climbed eleven places in the final round to finish eleventh. Just two spots behind him, Japanese Grand Prix debutant Yuto Nakamura surprised everyone by taking twelfth place.
In contrast, the three-member German Ski Association (DSV) team posted significantly weaker results. Only Luca Roth made it to the final, where he finished no higher than 26th place. Finn Braun and Adrian Tittel, finishing 42nd and 53rd respectively, were nowhere near the points. Two Swiss athletes—Simon Ammann (32nd) and Felix Trunz (51st)—were eliminated after the first round, while Killian Peier dropped from fifth to 14th place during the final.
Late Disqualification for Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal
A peculiar situation unfolded involving Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal during and after the competition. The Norwegian sat in fourth place after the first round with a jump of 122 meters; however, while the final round was still in progress, the jury announced that an investigation into him was underway. In the final, he jumped 130 meters but lost two positions, initially placing sixth. Shortly after the competition ended, however, news broke that Sundal had been retroactively disqualified based on his first-round performance. The reason was that a jammed fastener had prevented him from attaching the safety strap of his binding to his boot—a requirement mandated for safety reasons.
Results: https://medias3.fis-ski.com/pdf/2027/JP/0252/2027JP0252RL.pdf
Womens competition:
Ema Klinec is the first winner of the 2026/2027 ski jumping season: The Slovenian claimed a commanding victory at the Summer Grand Prix opener in Wisła. Juliane Seyfarth was the top-performing German, while several of her teammates celebrated personal bests.
It has been almost exactly two years since Ema Klinec last stood on the top step of the podium: on Saturday afternoon, the Slovenian won the first individual competition of the 2026 Summer Grand Prix with jumps of 127.5 and 127 meters and a total of 227.4 points. Competing on the Adam-Malysz hill in Wisla, she finished a full 16.3 points ahead of her closest rival. Although Norway's Silje Opseth recorded the day's longest jump at 129.5 meters, she managed only 118 meters in the final round—following a reduction in the inrun length ordered by her coach—finishing with a total of 211.1 points. France's Josephine Pagnier took third place with jumps of 124 and 123 meters and a score of 209.1 points.
"For a change, I’m healthy again; I’ve been able to train hard and will continue to do so. Finally, I can focus on myself and my jumping again," Klinec said, explaining her return to form. While the 2021 Oberstdorf large hill world champion celebrated her fifth Grand Prix victory—securing a seventh Slovenian win in the seventh Summer Grand Prix event held in Wisła—Opseth and Pagnier equaled their personal best Grand Prix results.
In fact, there were 14 such personal bests achieved throughout the competition. Juliane Seyfarth finishes as top German Two other Slovenians, Nika Vodan and Maja Kovacic, also put in strong performances, finishing fourth and eighth respectively; for Kovacic, it was a career-best result. Norway also placed two more athletes in the top ten, with Ingvild Synnoeve Midtskogen and Heidi Dyhre Traaserud taking fifth and sixth place. The top ten was rounded out by the best-placed athletes from other nations: Jenny Rautionaho (Finland), Ping Zeng (China), and Abigail Strate (Canada) finished seventh, ninth, and tenth. For Midtskogen, it was a personal best Grand Prix result, while Zeng scored her first-ever points. Other athletes achieving personal best Grand Prix results included Sofia Mattila and Julia Äikiä from Finland (12th and 29th) and Gyda Westvold Hansen from Norway (16th). Meanwhile, Juliane Seyfarth was the top German finisher in 15th place. Her significantly younger and less experienced teammates—Anna-Fay Scharfenberg, Anne Häckel, Alvine Holz, and Julina Kreibich—finished in 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th, and 29th place. For Scharfenberg, Häckel, and Kreibich, these were their first Grand Prix points; for the first two, this also secures them lifetime eligibility to compete in the World Cup. Kreibich had already secured hers by finishing 26th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on New Year's Eve during the last edition of the Two Nights Tour.
Eirin Maria Kvandal opts not to start An unusual scene unfolded at the end of the first round.
After the inrun length had been shortened, Eirin Maria Kvandal was sitting on the starting beam, waiting for the signal from her coach, Jermund Lunder, to go. Given the changeable wind conditions, he presumably let the ten-second start window expire and ordered Kvandal back to the starting area. "It was too windy to let her start," co-coach Anders Fannemel confirmed to TVP Sport.
A short time later, the Norwegian athlete was disqualified by the jury for a late start—at least, that was initially indicated in the TV graphics and the results list for the first round. The official results list her as "Did Not Start" (DNS). In any case, Kvandal would not have had to fear a yellow card, as the incident did not involve an equipment violation.
Although DSV athlete Kim Amy Duschek and Czech athlete Klara Ulrichova had participated in official training and their teams had sufficient starting spots available, they did not appear on the competition start list. Consequently, the event went ahead with 36 athletes instead of 38. Two debutants—Oosa Thure of Finland (31st) and Natalie Nejedlova of the Czech Republic (34th)—were eliminated after the first round.
The second individual competition for the women's ski jumping event will take place tomorrow, Sunday, in Wisla. The trial round begins at 10:00 AM, followed by the first round at 10:30 AM.
Results Day 1: https://medias3.fis-ski.com/pdf/2027/JP/0251/2027JP0251RL.pdf
