Stefan Kraft takes a clear win in Sapporo

Austria's Stefan Kraft won the second FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Sapporo (JPN) on Sunday. With two jumps of 139 m and 268.5 points, he came in clearly ahead of Germany's Stephan Leyhe and Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan.

In once again difficult conditions, Kraft proved his skills on the Okurayama hill in Sapporo. It was his second win this season, in addition to his total of seven second places during the course of this winter.
"I love this hill, I'm always jumping well in Sapporo and today's competition was my best this winter. I saw, that the jumpers before me didn't have good conditions and I then had some headwind. I had a bit of luck and perfect jumps, everything worked out well for me today. Now I'm looking forward to the weekend in Willingen, the hill there is almost like a flying hill with jumps of about 150. It will be exciting", explained the winner.

With this success today, Kraft extended his lead in the overall ranking. He is now 63 points ahead of Karl Geiger (fifth today). Kraft leads with 1063 points ahead of Geiger (1000 points) and Dawid Kubacki of Poland (924 points), who finished sixth today. Today's result ended the streak of 10 podiums in a row for Kubacki.

Leyhe with an amazing second jump
Willingen-native Stephan Leyhe posted the longest jump of the day and came in second. After the first round, he was eighth, in the final, he could then move up to second overall with 142 m. "It's been a while since I was on the podium, it was one and a half years ago in Wisla. My second jump was really good and I also had the necessary luck. I'm very happy about this result. The weekend here was a lot of fun. Next weekend in Willingen will be emotional for me, I'm in good shape and we'll see what I can achieve there", Leyhe summed up his weekend in Sapporo.

Ryoyu Kobayashi wants to fight
After the disappointing 15th place yesterday, Ryoyu Kobayashi finished third on Sunday. "I should be happy, because I had to good jumps in difficult conditions, but somehow I'm not completely satisfied. My shape is not perfect, I'm not satisfied with my technique, my inrun speed is not fast enough. It will be very hard to get to the top in the overall World Cup, but I'll keep on fighting", said Kobayashi.

Slovenes strong again
Peter Prevc was fourth and achieved his second Top 10 finish this weekend. With Timi Zajc (7th) and Anze Lanisek (10th), three Slovenes were in the Top 10 today, another strong result for the team of head coach Gorazd Bertoncelj.

Yukiya Sato, the winner of Saturday's competition, came in 16th this time.
Some well-known names failed to make the cut for the final round today, among them Markus Eisenbichler, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Noriaki Kasai and Kilian Peier.

The Ski Jumping World Cup continues next weekend in Willingen (GER).

Full results