The Face-off: Best Ski Jumpers 2019/20, Part 2

The Face-off is back, bringing you the biggest rivalries and sportive battles of last season to prepare for the upcoming winter. This week’s edition focusses on the best ski jumpers of the field again: of the soon-to-be women’s World Cup field that is.

Ranking performances in the women’s field is a little harder as there is no Best Jumper Trophy in the Continental Cup and participation in the women’s Continental Cup wasn’t always regular, as the financial backgrounds of teams still differed. In order to see who performed on the top we have sifted through records from Continental Cup, Junior World Ski Championships, Youth Olympic Games and the Best Jumper Trophy of the Summer Grand Prix 2019.

Still, the picture is not crystal-clear, indicating an interesting season to come. In total, nine athletes have won jumping rounds on the above-named circuits and events: Taylor Henrich (CAN), Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA), Marte Leinan Lund (NOR), Sigrun Kleinrath (AUT), Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR), Lisa Hirner (AUT), Jenny Nowak (GER), Svenja Würth (GER) and Stefaniya Nadymova (RUS).

Especially former Ski Jumpers Taylor Henrich and Svenja Würth will be a threat on the hill in the upcoming winter but we will cast a closer look at these two in another face-off down the road. For today’s article, we have decided to pit Russian Summer Grand Prix winner Stefaniya Nadymova against Norwegian team leader Gyda Westvold-Hansen.

Stefaniya Nadymova, also a former Ski Jumper, is well-known in Nordic Combined for her competitive attitude and the riveting duels with Tara Geraghty-Moats in the early days of the FIS Continental Cup. the 25-year-old Russian impressed with good Ski Jumping but also had to heal from a bigger crash during the events in Otepää in 2018. After her biggest triumph, the win of the 2019 Summer Grand Prix, Nadymova struggled a little more last winter but it does pay off to still have her on the list of extremely capable athletes.

In contrast, Gyda Westvold Hansen shows consistency on a high-level. Not only is she a strong ski jumper but also very capable cross-country skier, to which two back-to-back FIS Junior World Championship medals in 2019 and 2020 can attest. She also finished on the podium of the overall Continental Cup standings for the last two years and lead the Norwegian Mixed Team to the inaugural gold medal in Oberwiesenthal last winter. With Westvold Hansen maturing and getting stronger and stronger on the cross-country track as well, Therese Johaug’s cousin certainly has to be taken into account for the top results in the upcoming winter.