Stefan Kraft claims his 20th World Cup win

Stefan Kraft won the second FIS World Cup competition in Rasnov (ROU) on Saturday. In an extremely exciting competition, the Austrian claimed his 20th World Cup win ahead of the two Germans Karl Geiger and Constantin Schmid.

26-year-old Stefan Kraft posted jumps of 103 m and 97.5 m and scored 270.3 points. "It was a very cool competition again today, I could further improve my performance compared to yesterday. We analyzed yesterday's jumps and it was always close at the take-off. Before the second jump, I knew that Karl was in the lead and I was a bit nervous and felt the pressure because the two of us are fighting for the overall World Cup lead. I had to risk a lot in order to come in ahead of him and it's amazing that it worked out so well for me today", Kraft said after the competition.

With his 20th World Cup win today, Stefan Kraft has now equaled the number of wins of another great Austrian ski jumper: Andreas Goldberger also won 20 World Cup in his career. "Now I hope that Stefan will have more wins than me soon", told Goldberger, who is now a commentator for Austrian TV.

After his win on Friday, Karl Geiger came in second today and so it was a successful weekend for him. "I'm very satisfied with the second place today. Both jumps were good and it was a lot of fun. I can jump well on flying hills and on such smaller hills, maybe it's a bit easier for me on a normal hill because I'm very strong at the take-off. Of course, it's annoying that I wasn't really lucky when it comes to the wind conditions on the last three weekends, but the jumps were good and I hope I'll have some luck again in the future." In the overall World Cup, Geiger is now 118 points behind Stefan Kraft.

For Constantin Schmid, today's third place was his first podium in the World Cup, so far two fifth places were his best result. "I didn't expect to finish on the podium today. I thought that I would be able to finish in the Top 10 on the normal hill here. It was a really good day for me and of course, I'll try to follow up on this, but if it doesn't work, it's also not a problem. I didn't jump that well in Lahti in the past so maybe I can do better there this year", said Schmid, who was already looking ahead to the upcoming World Cup weekend in Lahti (FIN).

Three athletes set a new hill record of 103 m today. Constantin Schmid, Gregor Schlierenzauer and Stefan Kraft will now hold the record on the hill in Rasnov until at least the next winter.

Dawid Kubacki came in fourth ahead of the two Norwegians Daniel Andre Tande and Marius Lindvik. Willingen-native Stephan Leyhe was seventh, Slovenia's Ziga Jelar finished on a career-best eighth place and confirmed his strong shape, Kamil Stoch was ninth.

An important step for Severin Freund
For Severin Freund, it was a success to qualify for the final round in his second competition this season. Yesterday Freund narrowly missed the final of the Top 30, today he tied for 29th with Japanese Shohei Tochimoto. A small but important step for Freund, as it was always clear that many small steps would be necessary for him to return to the top.

Austria's Stefan Kraft leads the overall World Cup with 1433 points, followed by Karl Geiger (1315 points). Dawid Kubacki moved up to third with 1067 points.

The men's World Cup continues next weekend in Lahti (FIN). Three competitions (2 individual, 1 team) will be held there on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The event on Friday in Lahti is a re-scheduled competition from Ruka, that had to be canceled there due to the strong win on December 1st, 2019.

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