First win in the World Cup for Juliane Seyfarth

Juliane Seyfarth managed to surprise everyone in the season opener of the ladies in Lillehammer. The 28-year-old German took her first win in the World Cup in her 84th individual competition. Olympic Champion Maren Lundby of Norway and Sara Takanashi of Japan followed in second and third.

Seyfarth laid the foundation for her clear win already in the first round with a great jump of 98.5 m that earned her a lead of 13.9 points after the first half of the competition. In the end, Seyfarth scored a total of 258.8 points and came in 12.6 points ahead of Norway's Maren Lundby. It was a clear and well-deserved victory.

So far a fifth place was the best World Cup result of Juliane Seyfarth, and now this great success. With her good results last summer, Seyfarth already showed that she wants to give her all again in her eighth World Cup season. But it was still a surprise that she could take such a clear win against Lundby and Takanashi. "It´s amazing, I made two of my best jumps today. It was not only the first win for me, but it was also my first winter podium. I´m happy and just very thankful and looking forward to the next days. I’m not thinking about the triple, I´m just thinking from day to day", said the winner.

"I think it was a good start for me because my training jumps were ok, but not too good. I was able to do my two best jumps in the competition. Competing in Lillehammer, which is my home, is good", said local hero Maren Lundby. And also Sara Takanashi is satisfied with her third place in the season opener: "I had a small mistake in my first jump today, my second jump felt much better, which was good for me."

The great result of the German team was completed by Katharina Althaus, Carina Vogt and Ramona Straub in fourth, fifth and sixth. The seventh place went to Austria's Eva Pinkelnig.

The second competition of the ladies (also on the normal hill) starts on Saturday at 5:15 pm CET, a large hill event then follows on Sunday.

Full results