Maiden World Cup win for Halvor Egner Granerud

Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud won the second World Cup competition in Ruka (FIN) on Sunday. With an outstanding final jump, Granerud could finish just ahead of Germany's Markus Eisenbichler. The third place in a very exciting competition on the Rukatunturi-hill went to Dawid Kubacki of Poland.

Markus Eisenbichler was close to claiming his third win in a row, but then came Norway's Granerud and Eisenbichler didn't have the best conditions in the second round, so the crowd favorite from Bavaria came in second this time. "I didn't have the best conditions in the final round today, it was really changing and that made it difficult and it was close to the limit all the time. But I'm happy about my second place and I remain focused on making good jumps and I'm not thinking about results", said Eisenbichler, who leads the overall World Cup with his total of 280 points.

For Halvor Egner Granerud this was the first World Cup win ever, but the 24-year-old had already proven his extremely strong shape in Wisla and in the first competition in Ruka.  "I'm really, really happy, this is such a huge milestone. I have achieved a few fourth and fifth places before and to finally be on the podium and win is simply amazing. I saw Sato's incredible second jump and I knew that if I had the right conditions and do a good jump then I could fly far. The take-off was really good then and the conditions were as well so I was extremely high. The conditions were a bit changing during the flight, so it was a bumpy ride", said the obviously overwhelmed winner.

Like on Saturday, the third place went to Poland's Dawid Kubacki. "I'm really satisfied with the third place because the result after the first round wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I was seventh, but I knew that I would be able to fight for a better result and it was enough to be on the podium again. It's really nice for me to be on the podium twice here in Ruka. It was not an easy competition today because the wind was changing, but I think that all in all it was okay. I still have some work to do, because my jumps are still not perfect", told Kubacki.

The longest jump of the day was shown by Japan's Yukiya Sato in the final round. In good conditions, Sato soared to 146 m and with this amazing jump he came in fourth in today's competition.
The two Norwegians Johann Andre Forfang and Robert Johansson finished fifth and sixth, so the team achieved a great result after the disappointment yesterday. Karl Geiger and Severin Freund were eighth and ninth. For Severin Freund, this Top 10 result is definitely a huge success.

The bad news on this really good day of competition was that an athlete from the Czech Republic and a coach from Bulgaria tested positive for the corona virus in one of the regular tests. The entire teams of the Czech Republic and Bulgaria had to quarantine before the competitions and they will also not travel to Russia with the other teams.

On Monday at 11 am the teams will take a charter flight from Rovaniemi to Ekaterinburg. The next two World Cup competitions will then be held in Nizhny Tagil (RUS) next weekend.

Full results