Stefan Kraft wins in Lahti
Feb 25, 2022·Ski Jumping
Austria's Stefan Kraft won the first of three World Cup competitions in Lahti (FIN) on Friday evening. In difficult conditions, the team Olympic champion had a clear lead over Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud and Poland's Piotr Zyla, who came in only 0.2 points behind Granerud.
Friday's competition in Lahti was held in heavy snowfall and changing winds, the snowfall in southern Finland even caused the cancelation of the qualification earlier today and so the entire field of 68 athletes participated in the first round. The conditions improved later and so the spectators saw an exciting competition.
"Every win is nice, but today it was especially fun. The jumps felt very cool and it works well again, that's extremely important for me", Kraft explained. With regard to the team competition on Saturday in Lahti, Kraft said: "With a bit of luck we can fight for the podium again, but everything is possible in team competitions, you can also just finish fifth." Today's win was the second for Stefan Kraft this season, the 23rd of his career.
Halvor Egner Granerud said: "It's always fun to jump on this hill. I had two solid jumps today, they weren't perfect, but there was a lot of good energy in the jumps. Stefan was really good today, so I'm very satisfied with the second place. As long as there's the possibility I will try my best to get closer to the Top 2 in the overall World Cup and today was a good day. Granerud is currently third in the overall World Cup, 244 points behind Karl Geiger and 232 behind Ryoyu Kobayashi.
Piotr Zyla was happy about his first podium this winter: "My jumps were really good, so I'm happy right now. I also had a lot of fun today, especially in the second round and it's important for me to enjoy jumping. It was a difficult season for us, we couldn't achieve what we wanted, but it right now it's going well for me, I'm happy about the good results and I'm hoping for more."
Extremely close competition
Markus Eisenbichler was fourth and missed the podium by only 0.1 points, Karl Geiger followed in fifth, only 0.2 points behind Eisenbichler.
With his fifth place, Geiger extended his lead in the overall World Cup ranking ahead of Japan's Olympic champion Ryoyu Kobayashi, who was seventh today. Geiger (1234 points) now has a lead of 12 points over Kobayashi (1222 points). Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud has scored 990 points so far.
Austrian Ulrich Wohlgenannt, who was surprisingly leading after the first round, was sixth today. In the second round, Wohlgenannt lost five places, but the 27-year-old could still be more than satisfied with the sixth place in today's competition. It was by far the best result of his career.
Peter and Cene Prevc came in eighth and ninth, Gregor Deschwanden tied in ninth with Cene Prevc.
A team and an individual competition will be held in Lahti on Saturday and Sunday.
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