Slovenian Ski Flying experts strike in Vikersund
Mar 16, 2019·Ski Jumping
The team of Slovenia (Anze Semenic, Peter Prevc, Domen Prevc, Timi Zajc) won the team competition in Vikersund (NOR) on Saturday evening with a total of 1632.9 points, followed by Germany (Constantin Schmid, Richard Freitag, Karl Geiger, Markus Eisenbichler; 1606.3 points) and Austria (Michael Hayboeck, Philipp Aschenwald, Daniel Huber, Stefan Kraft; 1562.8 points. An outstanding Domen Prevc on the HS 240 Monsterbakken and a tight team performance were the key factors for Slovenia today.
It's been almost exactly three years since Peter Prevc, the oldest of the three Prevc brothers, stood on the podium in a Ski Flying event, now the 2015/16 overall World Cup champion could finally celebrate a win again on one of the world's largest hills - together with the team of Slovenian Ski Flying specialists.
"It's a great feeling to stand on top of the podium again after such a long time. We had a really strong team today and it was a lot of fun. Somehow it seems that it helps us in Ski Flying that we have such a great training facility at home in Planica", explained Peter Prevc. "Now we are all looking forward to the World Cup final next weekend on our home hill in Planica." This was the tenth World Cup win for a Slovenian team.
The German ski flyers came in second and improved their performances significantly after the team of Werner Schuster was only fifth a week ago in the Raw Air opener in Oslo.
The third place went to the team of Austria, lead by Stefan Kraft, who was extremely strong once again: "I was very nervous before my second jump because I watched Ryoyu Kobayashi and heard that he jumped on 237.5 m. I knew I had to take some risk and I needed a good take-off. I think that this was one of my best flights ever, it was extremely cool and I will remember it for a long time."
16.6 points behind Austria, the team of Poland came in fourth. Piotr Zyla and Jakub Wolny showed surprisingly strong performances, the two veterans Dawid Kubacki and Kamil Stoch didn't have their best Ski Flying days.
Japan and Norway finished fifth and sixth. No athlete on the team of the Norwegians had a really good day and so it was just enough for a disappointing sixth place in front of their home crowd.
The teams of Russia and Switzerland could also qualify for the final round with some really good jumps. This is especially remarkable for Switzerland with the two youngsters Dominik Peter and Sandro Hauswirth on the team. Simon Ammann also played a decisive role for his team today. It will be interesting to see how the four-time Olympic champion will fly in tomorrow's individual event.
Not three anymore, but only two athletes are fighting for the overall title. Before Sunday's final event Austria's Stefan Kraft, who won the first Raw Air two years ago, and Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi can still claim the title. After today's competition, Stefan Kraft has a lead of only 8.5 points over Kobayashi. Norway's Robert Johansson is third, but with 86.9 points behind Kobayashi, he will not have a chance to take the overall win.
The Raw Air overall winner will be awarded a prize money of € 60 000,-, the second-placed athlete gets € 30 000,- and the third-placed ski jumper € 10 000,-.
The individual competition on Sunday starts at 5 pm CET.
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