Stefan Kraft suddenly a top contender for Olympic gold
Feb 10, 2022·Ski Jumping
After great training jumps on the second day of training on the HS 140 in the Snow Ruyi National Ski Jumping Centre of Beijing, Austria's Stefan Kraft is suddenly the top contender for Olympic gold on the large hill.
After his two jumps of 129 m and 133 m, the two-time overall World Cup champion packed up his skis on Thursday evening (local time) and skipped the third training round. "If I can make two good ones, then that's enough for me today, I've already said that before the training", said Kraft. And his two jumps on Thursday were extremely good.
Now Kraft is on top of the list when it comes to favorites for the large hill competition, together with the three Norwegians Marius Lindvik, Halvor Egner Granerud, and Daniel Andre Tande. Peter Prevc, who won mixed team gold with the Slovenian team just a few days ago, also underlined his ambitions to win another Olympic medal in Beijing.
After winning silver in the mixed team competition for the Russian Olympic Committee, Evgeniy Klimov and Danil Sadreev presented themself in strong shape again. Both have to be reckoned with in the large hill event.
Norway's Robin Pedersen was finally able to make his first jumps at the Olympics in the third training round today. Pedersen came to Beijing to replace Johann Andre Forfang on the Norwegian team, who couldn't travel to China due to a Covid-infection. Pedersen's only jump on the HS 140 so far was really good already - 130 m.
Today went a lot better than yesterday for the German team. Markus Eisenbichler was fifth and eighth in the second and third round, Karl Geiger was ninth in the third round. Good results for both, after the first day of Training on Wednesday, didn't go as well as they had hoped for.
The qualification for Saturday's large hill competition will start on Friday at 7 pm LOC (12 pm CET).
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