First home win for Stefan Kraft

Austria's Stefan Kraft won the second Ski Flying competition in Bad Mitterndorf on Sunday. After only one round, Kraft finished ahead of Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi and Slovenia's Timi Zajc. Karl Geiger was the best German in sixth.

It can become very complicated to jump on the Ski Flying hill on the Kulm, especially in changing wind conditions. The athletes experienced this during the second round of the Ski Flying World Cup event in Bad Mitterndorf today. Various athletes were struggling with the conditions during their jumps.

When there were only three athletes waiting for their second jump of the day, the jury decided that it's too dangerous and canceled the final round of the competition, and so the results of the first round also became the final results today.

So Stefan Kraft took the win with his total of 232.6 points, just ahead of Ryoyu Kobayashi (242.5 points) and Slovenia's Timi Zajc (230.1 points). It was the 19th World Cup win for Kraft, the third this season. And it was his first-ever win in Austria.

"It was definitely not easy today. When you are at the top of the hill you can tell that it's windy and difficult. I can't say if it was the right decision to cancel because you don't have enough information about the conditions when you are up there. But it was a fantastic day for me. Sometimes you think: Why did I choose this sport, but right now everything works out fine for me and I enjoy being a member of the team", said Kraft.

Ryoyu Kobayashi improved his performance compared to Saturday: "I really enjoyed this weekend, today my concentration was better than yesterday. I will keep on fighting for the overall World Cup title this season", the Japanese explained.

Third-placed Timi Zajc said: "It was an amazing weekend for me, I don't know what to say. This week we will train on a smaller hill, to prepare for the competitions in Rumania next weekend. I don't think there will be time to celebrate today, I have to remain focused on the upcoming competitions and we will then celebrate after the season."

Kamil Stoch narrowly missed the podium in fourth. Domen Prevc jumped on the same distance as Stoch (232 m) and finished fifth.
Karl Geiger (6th) and Stephan Leyhe (10th) achieved Top 10 results for Germany. Johann Andre Forfang and Robert Johansson came in seventh and eighth. Piotr Zyla, the winner of Saturday's competition, was ninth today.

Finland's Antti Aalto confirmed his strong sixth place yesterday with the 11th place today. Aalto is now seventh in the Ski Flying World Cup with 64 points. Norway's Marius Lindvik improved his personal best for the second time this weekend with a spectacular flight of 242 m.

Stefan Kraft leads the Ski Flying World Cup now with 160 points. In the overall World Cup Kraft is ahead of 1273 points, followed by Karl Geiger (1135 points) and Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi (1045 points). Dawid Kubacki, who was only 32nd today, is now fourth (985 points).

The World Cup continues next weekend in Rasnov (ROU) with two competitions on the normal hill.

Full results