Stefan Kraft the best on day 1 in Lahti
Feb 28, 2020·Ski Jumping
Austria's Stefan Kraft won the first of three FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Lahti this weekend. In perfect conditions and wintery term-erasures of -8°C, he finished ahead of Karl Geiger of Germany and Norway's Daniel Andre Tande.
26-year-old Kraft posted two jumps of 129.5 m and claimed his 21st World Cup win, the fifth this season. Stefan Kraft had a lead of five points over Karl Geiger. Geiger has shown a great performance, but once again he was not able to beat the outstanding Stefan Kraft.
Kraft explained: "It was a perfect day, I already had a wonderful start with the first training jump. I really like this place and this hill. I have very good memories of Lahti and I'm having fun here. The hill is special, it's different from the others with a tricky inrun. Our entire team likes this hill, but I think that four or five teams can fight for the top tomorrow."
Karl Geiger told: "I'm really happy about the competition today. It was a bit of a tough start for me but it got better with every jump. I'll keep working on my performance and I'll try to make good jumps again on Sunday and then we will see if I can beat Stefan. Our entire team has been strong over the last weeks. We will be fighting for a good result tomorrow and hopefully, all of us will be in good shape."
Norway's Daniel Andre Tande was finally back on the podium for the first time since January 4th in Innsbruck. "The competition today was really nice. I was hoping I could continue jumping like I did in the last competition in Rasnov. In the beginning, I was a bit struggling today and it got better and better. It's no difference if there's an individual or a team competition, you have to prepare yourself and do your best. Hopefully, all four guys of our team will jump really well tomorrow and then we can fight for the podium", said Tande.
With today's win, Stefan Kraft made another step towards achieving his goal of winning the overall World Cup for the second time after 2016/17. Kraft extended his lead to now 138 points (Kraft: 1533 points; Geiger: 1395 points). Dawid Kubacki is third with 1107 points.
Slovenia's Anze Lanisek showed a convincing performance and was fourth today, followed by Kamil Stoch and Dawid Kubacki of Poland. Kubacki was second after the first round, but in an extremely close final round, he lost some points and finished sixth. Timi Zajc of Slovenia came in on a strong seventh place.
Stefan Huber strong
Austria's Stefan Huber could follow up on his strong performance in Rasnov last weekend. There, Huber finished on a career-best 20th place, today he was even eighth. He was followed by his teammates Michael Hayboeck and Philipp Aschenwald in ninth and tenth. It was a top result for the athletes of head coach Andi Felder and clear statement to the teams of Germany and Poland before tomorrow's team competition.
Simon Ammann (28th) and Killian Peier (23rd) scored points for Switzerland, Andreas Schuler and Gregor Deschwanden failed to make the cut for the final round of the Top 30. The Swiss team now has the chance to score points by reaching the final round in the team event on Saturday.
No chance for Severin Freund
Unlike in the two competitions in Rasnov, Severin Freund had no chance to qualify for the final round today. Freund finished 46th in Lahti and was about 20 points behind the 30th place. Freund was far from scoring World Cup points. The 2014/15 overall World Cup winner will have another chance in Sunday's competition in Lahti.
The team competition in Lahti will start on Saturday at 4 pm CET (5 pm LOC), the second individual competition follows on Sunday at 3:30 pm CET (4:30 pm LOC).
