Sensational triumph for Lidiia Iakovleva

Russian Lidia Iakovleva delivered the biggest surprise of the day winning the second competition of the season held in Lillehammer today. Young Russian is the second ever Russian World Cup winner after Irina Avvakumova won in Chaikovsky in January 2014. Second place went to local hero Maren Lundby, third was Slovenian Ema Klinec.

Iakovleva did really well already yesterday claiming her first ever top-10 result in a World Cup competition. Today she was in the lead already after the first round. In the final, she managed to stay ahead by 4,9 points. “It was a good competition, and I feel very good. I´m the winner and this is my first World Cup win. My experience on the large hill is limited,” said the overwhelmed young Russian.

Olympic champion Maren Lundby posted the longest jump of the day in the final round (101,5 meters) claiming the second place for the second time in a row. “I think my jumping is improving with every jump. I´m really happy with today. I was lucky with the conditions in my first jump, with the second jump I was a little bit unlucky, so I think I deserve the second place today. I´m back in the yellow bib, that´s how I like it best. The large hill will be exciting. I think there it will be a tight competition for the overall win. I´m motivated for the large hill,”  the Norwegian said after the competition.

The best of the Slovenes was Ema Klinec in third. “I´m really satisfied with my second jump. It was a good jump, but I still have reserves. Tomorrow is another day. I´m looking forward to the large hill, I´m going now to warm up, so let’s go,”

Place four went to the best German Katharina Althaus. Winner of yesterday’s opening competition as well as today’s qualification Juliane Seyfarth was fifth. Veteran Daniela Iraschko-Stolz from Austria moved up from place 12th into fifth position. Second Slovene in top-10 was Nika Kriznar in seventh.
Japanese Yuka Seto, who did not take part in yesterday’s competition as she was disqualified in Thursday’s qualification, was eighth today. Top-10 was completed by another strong Norwegian Silje Opseth who moved up from 13th to ninth, and another Austrian Eva Pinkelnig.
Eleventh was the third of the host nation Anna Odine Stroem, who posted the longest jump of the first round (100 meters).

Apart from the surprising win of the young Russian, the big sensation was disqualification of the Japanese superstar Sara Takanashi before the jump in the first competition round.

After the second competition of the season, Maren Lundby took over the yellow bib. With 160 points she leads now over Juliane Seyfarth (145 points) and today’s winner Lidiia Iakovleva (132 points).
Juliane Seyfarth managed to stay in the lead of the Lillehammer Triple (515,6 points). Second is Maren Lundby 3,4 points behind the German. Katharina Althaus is third (496,4 points). Today’s winner moved from 8th to fourth place (495,2 points) overall.

The third and the final event of the Lillehammer Triple will be held on the big hill on Sunday at 12:45 CET, the official training and qualification being held already tonight.

Full results