Opseth wins Lillehammer, Pinkelnig World Cup overall
Mar 13, 2023·Ski Jumping
Silje Opseth from Norway won the Ski Jumping World Cup and third competition in RAW AIR 2023 on Monday. Opseth prevailed in difficult conditions and snowfall ahead of Selina Freitag (GER) and Ema Klinec from Slovenia.
"I'm insanely relieved, I've worked so hard in the past weeks and it just didn't go well. But today it finally worked again, I like this hill here insanely" Opseth freed herself. For the 23-year-old it was the 5th World Cup victory.
Selina Freitag was happy about the best result of her career so far. In January, Freitag had already rejoiced over second place in Zao (JPN), so now second place for the second time. "It's going really cool at the moment, in Oslo I was already satisfied with the flights but the second place today is really super cool," said Freitag.
There was also huge jubilation in the Austrian camp after the competition. Eva Pinkelnig's 11th place in the day's ranking was enough to secure victory in the overall World Cup for the first time in her career. Pinkelnig leads with two World Cup competitions still to go (Lillehammer and final in Lahti) with 215 points ahead of Katharina Althaus and thus has the big crystal globe secured.
"Of all places, here in Lillehammer, where everything started, where I jumped my first World Cup event, to be overall World Cup winner a few years later, with everything I had to experience in between, that's unbelievable," Pinkelnig cheered after the biggest success of her career.
In the RAW AIR overall ranking, Slovenian Ema Klinec continues to lead with a 33.6-point advantage over Anna Odine Stroem, who finished 12th today, after today's competition.
Yuki Ito finished fourth, Katharina Althaus ended up in 5th place ahead of Slovenia's Nika Kriznar and Eirin Kvandal who was in the lead after the first round.
For the women the RAW AIR continues already tomorrow with the qualification in Lillehammer and then on Wednesday with the second competition at the same place.
