Franz-Josef Rehrl (AUT) ©FIS

August 27, 2014 (Villach, Austria) – Austrian youngster Franz-Josef Rehrl has taken the win at the Provisional Competition Round in Villach today. In front of his home crowd, the 21-year old jumped 95.5 metres which was enough to beat veteran teammate Christoph Bieler who landed at 93 metres. Czech Republic’s Tomas Portyk and Yoshito Watabe from Japan shared rank three with jumps of 93 and 97.5 metres and a total point value of 125.5.

With a total of 129 points, Rehrl will be in the lead of the pack should the PCR have to be used in adverse weather conditions tomorrow. Bieler’s 127.8 points would mean a time disadvantage of 5 seconds on Rehrl, Portyk and Watabe will start 14 seconds back. Overall SGP leader Johannes Rydzek ranked fifth with 124.6 points and 18 seconds of time behind. The Top Ten is completed by Poland’s Szczepan Kupczak, Takehiro Watanabe, Björn Kircheisen, Lukas Greiderer and Ilkka Herola who would start within 33 seconds of the leader.

Nordic Combined superstars Jason Lamy Chappuis and Eric Frenzel ranked 13th (+0:37) and 15th (+0:39) after a weaker landing by Frenzel. Austria’s Marco Pichlmayer hit a bad jump and landed at 76.5 metres already, ranking last in the result list.

As there were just 54 athletes on start, the jury decided that all participating athletes will be allowed to start in the competition tomorrow. USA’s Nicholas Madden was disqualified due to irregular equipment.

Full results here.

View the photo gallery here.