Peter Prevc wins Planica

Peter Prevc, Slovenian ski jumping superstar, has added another milestone to his career.

Prevc, who will end his career this weekend in the Slovenian ski jumping Mecca of Planica, achieved a euphorically acclaimed victory on the HS 240 meter flying hill ahead of Austria's Daniel Huber and Johann Andre Forfang from Norway.

In the penultimate individual competition of the season, the overall World Cup winner of the 2015/2016 season achieved his first victory after a break of over 4 years (Lillehammer 2020).

Friday in Planica was Prevc's day, with sister Nika Prevc among the first well-wishers, who had accepted the trophy as overall World Cup winner of the 2023/24 season just a few meters away on the normal hill yesterday.

Peter Prevc had been getting better and better over the past few weeks after announcing his career end for this weekend early on and had finished second four times (2 x Oberstdorf, Lahti, Trondheim).

Today he won in Planica in front of over 20,000 enthusiastic spectators.

Prevc was overwhelmed in the presence of his wife and two young sons.

"It was a magical day today, I managed to stay focused, which really wasn't easy given all the people here and the enthusiasm and all the hustle and bustle. I didn't expect to win the competition today, there were so many really strong athletes at the start. It's absolutely incredible that I managed to win here today. It's an incredibly emotional moment but I'm still forgetting that at the moment," said Prevc.

Prevc, who has been voted Sportsman of the Year in Slovenia four times, is not expecting his big farewell until after the last competition of the season - the final in Planica on Sunday. The Slovenian federation has then announced a unique farewell party for "Peter the Great" in the stadium.

In the competition, Prevc was able to relegate the Austrian Daniel Huber and the Norwegian Johann Andre Forfang to second and third place. "Peter simply did it best today," said Huber, acknowledging Prevc's brilliant performance without envy.

Overall World Cup winner Stefan Kraft finished in 7th place and thus involuntarily made the battle for the Ski Flying World Cup even more exciting. Kraft has a 34-point lead over Peter Prevc ahead of the final individual event on Sunday.

Prevc therefore still has the chance to win the overall Ski Flying World Cup on Sunday - it would be a sensation.
The US American Erik Belshaw also put in a sensational performance in 8th place, finishing one place ahead of Ryoyu Kobayashi.

Pius Paschke was the best from the German team in 10th place, Karl Geiger was 13th.

Yevhen Marusiak from the Ukraine once again proved his flying talent and his love for the Planica flying hill with 15th place - great.

And then Noriaki Kasai once again collected World Cup points, 29th place for the 51-year-old 17-time World Cup winner, who still has his legendary feeling for flying and incredible physical fitness.

As a reward, Kasai is now also part of the team that will represent Japan in the team competition on Saturday.

The team competition on Saturday starts at 9:30 am.