The German ski jumpers around the Olympic silver medalist Katharina Althaus clearly missed a top ranking at the earliest start in World Cup history.
With heavy rain at times, Althaus (Oberstdorf) only finished 21st in the mat jumping in the Polish city of Wisla as the third best DSV athlete and had to accept her worst World Cup result in almost seven years.
When Norwegian Silje Opseth won, Selina Freitag (Aue) finished 19th and Agnes Reich (Isny) 20th, just ahead of eight-time World Cup winner Althaus.
Luisa Görlich (Lauscha) in 26th place and Anna Rupprecht (Degenfeld) in 29th place still collected World Cup points.
Opseth won her first victory after twelve podium places with jumps of 123.0 and 127.0 m (251.5 points) on the Adam-Malysz-Schanze ahead of overall World Cup title defender Marita Kramer (244.2) and Eva Pinkelnig (both Austria/243.8) through.
Althaus (196.6) was about 26 meters short of the podium.
Norway's top jumper Maren Lundby celebrated a solid return after a year and a half's break from competitions, finishing 16th.
The Olympic champion from Pyeongchang and two-time world champion skipped the last Olympic season because of weight problems and wanted to take a stand against the lean mania in her sport.
Because the world association FIS wanted to avoid the start of the football World Cup, which begins on November 20th, it scheduled the first competitions of the season earlier than ever.
In Poland, men and women jump without artificial snow, like at the Summer Grand Prix, on mats and with an ice track.
On Sunday (12.00 p.m.) there will be another single in Wisla.
At the following stations in Kuusamo (men/November 26th and 27th) and Lillehammer (women/December 3rd and 4th) there will be jumping on snow.