Stefan Kraft wins on turbulent day in Nizhny Tagil
Dec 08, 2019·Ski Jumping
Austria's Stefan Kraft won the second World Cup competition in Nizhny Tagil (RUS). In difficult wind conditions, Kraft finished ahead of Swiss Killian Peier and Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi. With 277.6 points (140 m and 134.5 m) the 26-year-old 2015 4-Hills-Tournament took a clear win with a lead of 23 points.
The difficult wind conditions were extremely demanding for the athletes: "You don't know what kind of wind conditions you'll have when you are on the starting bar. I decided to take a risk, attack and see what will happen. Of course, I had a little bit of luck twice today. You have to attack and hope for a little bit of head wind. I'm really happy to stand on top of the podium again. I'm also a little bit surprised that I'm in such stable and good shape right now because in summer and fall I had many bad jumps and not a lot of self-confidence", said Kraft. It was his 17th win in the World Cup, the first one of an Austrian jumper in Nizhny Tagil.
For Killian Peier of Switzerland this second place was a career-best and the first podium in the World Cup. Killian Peier explained: "It was a bit of a lottery today, but that's part of our sport. It takes place outdoors so sometimes the conditions can be perfect and sometimes they change a lot. I was lucky today when it comes to the wind conditions, but I also had good jumps."
With Ryoyu Kobayashi, the dominating athlete of last winter, came in third today. "It’s always a little lottery when it’s windy like today. I’m happy about my result and that my jumps are getting better and better. For this winter I don’t have any big plans. I only want to participate in all competitions and jump well", explained Kobayashi.
The two Norwegians Daniel Andre Tande and Thomas Aasen Markeng finished fourth and fifth. With this fourth place, Tande could extend his lead in the overall World Cup and Markeng provided THE stroy of the weekend with his fifth place.
The 19-year-old participated in only six World Cup competitions before the weekend in Nizhny Tagil, his best result was the tenth place last weekend in Ruka. When the Norwegian team now traveled to Russia, Markeng was denied entry because his passport didn't have the minimum validity of six months and so he had to return to Norway. Everyone else would have probably watched the event on TV, but Markeng still wanted to compete. The youngster returned home from Moscow to Oslo, where he somehow managed to get a new passport and the required visa in just one day and got back on a plane to Russia. The trip takes about ten hours. Today Markeng was fifth, a great story!
Karl Geiger and Constantin Schmid were the best Germans in sixth and seventh, Peter Prevc was happy about his eighth place, the same result as yesterday.
The Ski Jumping World Cup continues next weekend in Klingenthal (GER).
