Jakub Janda

Jakub Janda
Janda in 2011
Country  Czech Republic
Born (1978-04-27) 27 April 1978
Čeladná, Czechoslovakia
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Personal best 218 m (715 ft)
Vikersund, 25 Feb 2012
World Cup career
Seasons 19962018
Individual wins 6
Indiv. podiums 20
Yellow bibs 21
Indiv. starts 361
Team starts 47
Overall titles 1 (2006)
Four Hills titles 1 (2006)
Updated on 17 November 2017.

Jakub Janda (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjakup ˈjanda]; born 27 April 1978) is a Czech former ski jumper and current politician. In ski jumping he competed from 1996 to 2017, winning the 2005/06 World Cup and 2005/06 Four Hills Tournament (shared with Janne Ahonen), as well as silver and bronze medals at the 2005 World Championships. Janda is one of the most successful ski jumpers from the Czech Republic, and remains their only World Cup champion to date.

Career

Ski jumping

Janda made his World Cup debut in 1996 but had to wait until 2003 for his first major success, which was third place in Liberec. Janda improved his performance under new Slovenian coach Vasja Bajc in 2004. In 2004–05 season he managed to collect several second and third places and one victory in World Cup events. He also gained a silver and a bronze medal at the 2005 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf.

Janda started 2005/06 season with World Cup wins in Kuusamo, Lillehammer, Harrachov and Engelberg, and entered the Four Hills Tournament leading the World Cup standings. In the opening event in Oberstdorf, Janda finished in third place to place high for the second round, with Janne Ahonen in first and Roar Ljøkelsøy in second. After winning the second race of the Tournament in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Janda moved to second place in the standings behind the reigning Tournament champion Ahonen. Norway's Lars Bystøl was the unexpected winner in Innsbruck while Janda finished ahead of Ahonen for the second straight time to move into a two-point lead before the last competition. Like in all previous rounds Janda advanced in last place into the competition to having skis that were too long during Oberstdorf qualifying and could not participate in the next three qualifying rounds as a result. The tournament climaxed with a Janda vs. Ahonen knockout duel. Janda won the first round by one point (tied to Ahonen on meters), then increased his lead to three points before the last jump. Ahonen beat Janda in the last jump by 141.5 meters to 139 meters and won the Bischofshofen competition by two points. The overall standings thus had both jumpers tied for first place, the first ever joint victors in the history of the tournament. Norway's Ljøkelsøy finished third.

Jakub Janda was the first Czech winner of the Tournament since Jiří Raška won it in 1971.

Janda then experienced a drop of form, leading to poor results at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, finishing 13th in the individual normal hill, 10th in the individual large hill and 9th in the team large hill.

After the Olympics he managed to return to the podium in the World Cup event (2nd place in Lahti), but his form was less solid in comparison to the beginning of the season. His biggest rival Janne Ahonen tried to take advantage of it, but also struggled and after disappointing Lahti results on the eve of the end of the season, he decided to withdraw from one race of the World Cup to concentrate on the last events in Norway and on mammoth hill in Planica.

Janda's lead grew to 175 points with 200 points to gain in the last round in Planica. Janda announced he did not want to participate in the ski flying event (he finished only seventh in the Ski Flying World Championships just after the Four Hills Tournament), but had to compete in Planica to secure his overall title. Qualifying last to the final round of the first of two Planica races and finishing 29th after the second jump, he was helped by Ahonen, who did not reach a better result than 11th place.

Janda did not enter the last race and finished the World Cup standings with 1151 points, 127 ahead of Ahonen (which means he really did not need participate in Planica). He was the first Czech that won the ski jumping World Cup ever, and more – no Czech skier had ever won the Olympic discipline World Cup standings before.

Coach Vasja Bajc, who is widely considered the driving force behind Janda's rise to fame, ended his relationship with the Czech team after the season and was replaced by an Austrian, Richard Schallert.

Janda has competed in three Winter Olympics, earning his best finish of seventh in the team large hill event at Vancouver in 2010 while his best individual finish was 13th in the individual normal hill event at Turin four years earlier.

On 2 October 2017 he made his last official career jump when he stucked at the qualification round of Grand Prix season final competition in Klingenthal. Only three weeks later he became a politician.

Politics

He participated in Czech legislative election, 2017 and was elected into the parliament as candidate of the Civic Democratic Party.[1] At the same time he was elected in Czech parliament he officially ended his ski jumping career.

World Cup

Standings

Season Overall 4H SF RA W5 NT JP
1995/96 N/AN/AN/A
1996/97 96N/AN/A4892
1997/98 705238N/AN/A6372
1998/99 4750N/AN/A46
1999/00 70N/AN/A70
2000/01 357134N/AN/A21N/A
2001/02 3237N/AN/AN/AN/A
2002/03 2537N/AN/AN/A14N/A
2003/04 3954N/AN/AN/A17N/A
2004/05 65N/AN/AN/A6N/A
2005/06 1st, gold medalist(s)1st, gold medalist(s)N/AN/AN/A6N/A
2006/07 2219N/AN/AN/A25N/A
2007/08 4925N/AN/AN/A57N/A
2008/09 222245N/AN/A20N/A
2009/10 2226N/AN/A15N/A
2010/11 343329N/AN/AN/AN/A
2011/12 251234N/AN/AN/AN/A
2012/13 62N/AN/AN/AN/A
2013/14 284625N/AN/AN/AN/A
2014/15 5646N/AN/AN/AN/A
2015/16 3221N/AN/AN/AN/A
2016/17 381651N/AN/AN/A
2017/18 N/AN/A

Wins

No. Season Date Location Hill Size
1 2004/0523 January 2005  Germany Titisee-NeustadtHochfirstschanze HS142LH
2 2005/0626 November 2005  Finland KuusamoRukatunturi HS142 (night)LH
3 4 December 2005  Norway LillehammerLysgårdsbakken HS138LH
4 11 December 2005  Czechoslovakia HarrachovČerťák HS142LH
5 18 December 2005  Switzerland EngelbergGross-Titlis-Schanze HS137LH
6 1 January 2006  Germany Garmisch-PartenkirchenGroße Olympiaschanze HS137 (night)LH

References

Specific
  1. "Skokan Jakub Janda jde do klání o místo ve Sněmovně v dresu ODS". Novinky.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 9 June 2017.
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