Ryoyu Kobayashi takes the qualification win in Vikersund
Mar 15, 2019·Ski Jumping
On Friday evening, Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan won the qualification for the FIS Ski Flying World Cup on Sunday in Vikersund. Kobayashi posted the longest jump of the day with 232 m and landed two meters farther than Austria's Stefan Kraft, who came in second in the qualification. Markus Eisenbichler finished on the strong third place.
On the first of three days on the monsterbakken in Vikersund, the athletes showed some great flights with Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi coming out on top once again. For his win, Kobayashi was awarded a prize money of CHF 5 000,-. First, the overall leader of the Raw Air, Stefan Kraft of Austria, jumped on 230 m. "When I was up there and saw the flight of Stefan, I didn't think that I could go even farther. It's great that I was able to do it", said Kobayashi, who is now only 6.6 points behind Kraft in the Raw Air ranking. "I'm not thinking about the overall ranking at all, I just take one jump at a time and hopefully I can show some good flights tomorrow and on Sunday", Kobayashi added.
Norway's Robert Johansson lost some ground in the Raw Air ranking in today's qualification. Johansson landed at 212 m today (8th) and lost more than 20 points compared to Kraft and Kobayashi, but he's still third in the Raw Air. Johansson can regain the points tomorrow just as fast as he lost them today. A lot can happen in Ski Flying.
Markus Eisenbichler jumped on 221 m, came in third and once again proved his great Ski Flying skills.
Some young athletes showed great performances on the HS 240 in Vikersund today. Constantin Schmid, 19-year-old German talent, landed at 212.5 m and was ninth, 18-year-old Jonathan Learoyd of France showed a great jump of 201 m and was 25th in his Ski Flying debut. 19-year-old Kazakh Sergey Tkachenko (28th) and 18-year-old Dominik Peter of Switzerland (39th) could show convincing performances as well.
The team competition in Vikersund is held on Saturday at 5 pm CET, Sunday's individual competition, the final of the Raw Air, also starts at 5 pm CET.
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