Japanese victory in Zao

Yuki Ito won the first individual competition of the FIS World Cup Ladies Ski Jumping in Zao (JPN). The local hero got for her jumps to 89,5 and 94,0 meters 213,6 points. That gave her an advantage of 0,3 points on Manuela Malsiner of Italy, who surprisingly finished second. Third place went to Russia´s Irina Avvakumova.

Ito is cheering - Takanashi beaten
While Yuki Ito was screaming out her joy after the competition, teammate Sara Takanashi had to suffer another defeat. Finishing 5th she missed out on her 50th World Cup win already in the third attempt. At least she performed a great comeback from 10th place after round one. Yuki Ito on the other hand was overjoyed after her second World Cup victory: „I am very happy that I was able to win both in Sapporo and now in Zao. The conditions have not been easy and I was late at the take off in the first round. But the result is great and I want to try to show my best jumps on Saturday.“

Malsiner with historic result for Italy
In heavy snowfall and difficult wind conditions Manuela Malsiner put the cherry on top of her good shape of the past weeks and celebrated her first World Cup podium. 90,5 and 93,0 meters also brought the best ever World Cup result for the Italian Ladies team. Malsiner was almost lost of words after the ceremony: „It is unbelievable. I would have never expected that. It is a great moment“, she said with tears of joy in her eyes. On third place Irina Avvakumova confirmed her consistent performances since the beginning of the year and awarded herself with the third podium in 2017. After her jumps to 88,5 and 92,0 meters and 210,6 points she said: „I am feeling great, the weather is bad and it couldn´t have ended any better today.“

Lundby cant take advantage of pole position
Avvakumova was aware that she was a little lucky in the final round and benefited of a mistake of Maren Lundby. The Norwegian, who won five days ago in Sapporo, was in the lead after the first round and very much expected to bring home her third World Cup victory. A little mistake in her final jump brought her down to 6th place – and Avvakumova on the podium.

Vogt getting closer
Moving closer and closer to the top three Germany´s Carina Vogt finished fourth only 1,8 points behind Avvakumova after three fifth place in the last competitions. Sara Takanashi consoled herself with the longest jump of the day to 95,0 meters in the final round and scored 208,3 points on fifth place, 0,6 points ahead of Maren Lundby. Yuka Seto, with 201,0 points on seventh place, was the third Japanese finishing in the top ten.

Slovenia twice in top ten
Behind her Ema Klinec and Spela Rogelj came in 8th and 9th and saved a descend result for the Slovenian team. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz couldn´t quite confirm her training performances and finished 10th. Sarah Hendrickson struggled with the conditions, especially at the landing in fresh snow but still managed to secure a good 11th place for the United States ahead of teammate Nita Englund. Svenja Wuerth and Katharina Althaus came in 13th and 14th ahead of the two Slovenia’s Eva Logar and Nika Kriznar. Taylor Henrich was the only Canadian in the final round and finished 20th, Lea Lemare and Daniela Haralambie scored for France and Romania on 25 and 27.

The second competition in Zao will start on Saturday at 9.00 am (CET).