Ryoyu Kobayashi claims the win in the qualification
Feb 08, 2019·Ski Jumping
Ryoyu Kobayashi keeps on adding to his personal record season. After winning already 10 World Cups this winter, the Japanese highflyer also won the qualification for the individual competition in Lahti (FIN) on Friday evening. Kobayashi posted a jump of 127 m on the HS 130 hill and came in ahead of Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud and Stefan Kraft of Austria.
Antti Aalto surprises
The surprise of the day was provided by Finland's Antti Aalto, who showed a strong jump and ended up fourth. Aalto could achieve a top result for the Finnish team after a long drought.
Best Pole was Dawid Kubacki in fifth, Kamil Stoch was ninth, Jakub Wolny confirmed his very good performance in last weekend's Ski Flying events in Oberstdorf with the 12th place.
Karl Geiger was seventh and the best of the German team. Geiger has very good memories of Lahti - the Oberstdorf native finished second there in 2016. Stephan Leyhe, Martin Hamann, Constantin Schmid, and Richard Freitag also qualified for the competition. Markus Eisenbichler is not competing in Lahti, he takes a break to prepare himself for the WSC.
Austria strong with Schlierenzauer
Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer presented himself in a strong shape after his long break and came in 11th. Together with Stefan Kraft, Michael Hayboeck (ninth today) and Philipp Aschenwald (12th), the Austrians even have a chance to fight for the win tomorrow.
While Ziga Jelar was the best of the Slovenian team in 18th, today's qualification did not go well for two of his teammates. Jurij Tepes and Peter Prevc were not among the Top 50 today and failed to make the cut for Sunday's competition. Timi Zajc, who took his first World Cup win in Oberstdorf, is not participating in Lahti.
Saturday's team competition starts at 4:30 pm CET (5:30 pm LOC).
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