Chiara Hoelzl wins in Rasnov and takes the lead

Austrian Chiara Hoelzl won the 9th competition in Rasnov (ROU) on Saturday taking the yellow bib of ski jumping World Cup leader. The 22-year-old from SV Schwarzwach-Salzburg claimed the win ahead of Katharina Althaus from Germany and teammate Eva Pinkelnig.

After winning the first qualification on Friday, Chiara Hoelzl confirmed her leader position on the HS 97 jumping hill in Rasnov. This is her sixth podium and second World Cup individual win and she is now just 1 point ahead of her team mate Eva Pinkelnig in the overall ranking.  Before this event, Pinkelnig was 1 point behind Maren and is now just 1 point behind Chiara.

With this first and third finish today, the Austrian athletes prolonged their winning position, as this victory was already the seventh in a row since Klingenthal (GER) last December. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz (8th) and Jacqueline Seifriedsberger (10th) completed another strong result for Austrian team in the Top 10 in today's competition.

Claiming the second position,German Katharina Althaus was happy to be again on the podium after her third place in Klingenthal (GER) last December.  She was already excited about next weekend’s competitions in Oberstdorf, her hometown.

Sara Takanashi remained the best Japanese finishing in fourth place.

Coming on fifth place ahead of her teammate Silje Opseth,  Olympic champion Maren Lundby of Norway could not keep the leader bib.

Juliane Seyfarth from Germany finished seventh and the best Slovene is Nika Kriznar finishing ninth.

Scoring 570 points, Chiara Hoelzl takes now the lead of the overall World Cup, only one point ahead of teammate Eva Pinkelnig. Maren Lundby is third with 555 points.

The World Cup continues tomorrow in Rasnov at 1 pm CET (qualification: 11:30 am CET).

Full results