Lundby takes the victory in Sapporo

Maren Lundby won the second competition of the FIS World Cup Ladies Ski Jumping in Sapporo ahead of Yuki Ito and Katharina Althaus. The Norwegian was already in the lead after her jump to 97,0 meters in the first round.

Hill record for Lundby
In the final she put the cherry on the top and set a new hill record with 100,0 meters and 248,5 points. Lundby said afterwards: „I am really happy today. The whole weekend went good for me. Today I was able to show my best jumps and I am very confident for the upcoming events.“ In partly heavy snowfall, especially in the final round, Japan´s Yuki Ito took her second podium of the weekend after her victory on Saturday. With 97,0 and 96,5 meters and 236,3 points she made the huge crowd at the Miyanomori hill cheering.

Ito not entirely happy
Still, Ito was not completely satisfied: „I was a bit too late at the take off in both rounds. So my jumps could have been better. I want to try to show my best performance in Zao next weekend.“ On third place Germany´s Katharina Althaus finally took her first ever World Cup podium. 94,5 and 93,5 meters got her 231,4 points.

Althaus with first podium
Althaus stated: „It is great that it finally worked out with the podium. I have been pretty close a few times already. Also the rest of the team is getting better and better and I think we are on a very good way towards the World Championships.“ 14,0 points behind Althaus Sara Takanashi finished a quite disappointing weekend on 4th place. 93,0 and 89,0 meters have not been enough for the desired 50th World Cup victory of the Japanese World Cup leader.

Vogt again on five
Carina Vogt of Germany came in with 212,0 points and finished on 5th place already for the third time in the last four competitions. Russia´s Irina Avvakumova finished 6th with 207,0 points ahead of the best Austrian, Daniela Iraschko-Stolz on 7th place and the best Slovenian, Maja Vtic on 8th place. Svenja Wuerth on 9th place achieved the third top ten result of the day for the German team, Manuela Malsiner came in 10th like already on Saturday. Sarah Hendrickson missed out on the top ten and came in 12th behind Ema Klinec and ahead of Kaori Iwabuchi and Spela Rogelj, Chiara Hoelzl of Austria completed the best 15. Lea Lemare was the only French athlete who could qualify and finished 22nd ahead of qualification winner Gianina Ernst. Finland´s Julia Kykkaenen scored on 27th place.

Takanashi in the lead
In the overall World Cup Sara Takanashi is leading with 690 points ahead of Yuki Ito with 532 and Maren Lundby with 417 points. Next stage for the flying ladies is Zao (JPN) from Thursday on.