OSLO (Kyodo) Japan's ski jumpers did not get the break they needed in the normal hill team event at the Nordic skiing world championships Sunday, finishing out of the medals in fifth place.
The foursome of Fumihisa Yumoto, Taku Takeuchi, Noriaki Kasai and Daiki Ito scored 931.1 points, well behind Austria which won the gold medal with 1.025.5 points.
Host Norway followed with 1,000.5 points, and Germany took the bronze with 968.2 points.
Japan managed to finish third at the 2007 and 2009 championships, but did not get the luck this time.
"We did the bare minimum," Ito said. "We gave it our all, but it wasn't good enough for us to medal, which says everything about the gap between us and them. The other teams are peaking in time for the big events, we're not."