Intro:

Norway's Anders Bardal soared out to 140.5 metres as he won the Ski Jumping World Cup qualifying event at Ruka in Finland on Thursday, from Anssi Koivuranta and Severin Freund.

Script:

The second meeting of the new Ski Jump World Cup season is being held in Ruka in Finland.

On Thursday 59 men set out to join the 10 already qualified for the large hill events on Friday and Saturday.

Among them was Finland's Anssi Koivuranta who earned 153.6 points jumping 133 and a half metres.

Germany's Severin Freund was also hoping to reach the main event, he earned 148.9 points following a leap of 131.5 metres.

So the Finnish jumper was still the pick of the qualifiers until this man took his turn.

Norway's Anders Bardal with comfortably the biggest jump of the day. 140.5 metres for 164.4 points.

All three go through, they will be among 50 jumpers hoping to move up the leaderboard this weekend.