Jacqueline Seifriedsberger clinched her second victory in the Ski Jumping World Cup on Saturday in Willingen. The 33-year-old from Upper Austria prevailed eleven years to the day following her debut triumph in Sapporo in 2013 following leading at halftime ahead of record World Cup winner Sara Takanashi from Japan. Seifriedsberger showed jumps of 125 and 127 meters on the largest large hill in the world (hill size 147). Sara Marita Kramer achieved her best result of the season in fifth place.
Seifriedsberger coped best with the difficult conditions – in addition to constant rain, the jumpers also had to deal with changing wind conditions. The third-place finisher at the 2013 World Cup, who had to deal with two cruciate ligament tears since her first heyday, said she focused on the slippery inrun track and was rewarded. Was at the New Year’s jump in Oberstdorf Seifriedsberger recently came third. At that time she had not yet taken the half-time lead to the finish line.
“Can’t realize it yet”
“It’s really cool, I can’t really realize it yet. It’s really a weight off my heart that I managed to finish the second round like that,” said Seifriedsberger. “In Oberstdorf my nerves also played a part. Today I thought to myself: No matter what happens, I’m going to hit you. It’s really cool that it worked out.” It was a difficult competition. “It wasn’t entirely fair, that’s clear. But you also need a certain amount of luck.”
After the first round, four ÖSV women were in the top five. Only the Canadian Alexandria Loutitt, who was tied for second place with Kramer, joined the phalanx, which also included Chiara Kreuzer and Lisa Eder. Like the former overall World Cup winner Kramer, who took fifth place from Engelberg with 118.5 and 124.5 meters, Kreuzer also achieved her best result of the season in seventh place. Eder fell back to tenth place, defending World Cup champion Eva Pinkelnig had to settle for 13th place.
“It was jumpable”
The top athletes in the World Cup rankings all had bad luck with the wind in the first round. Last year’s Japanese winner Yuki Ito, Pinkelnig and Nika Prevc were therefore only in intermediate positions 19 to 21. Ito moved up to eighth place, while the three-time season winner Pinkelnig gained a few points on the leading Slovenian Prevc (15th) in the overall World Cup. The Vorarlberg native, who most recently came first and second in Ljubno, skipped the test round despite the difficult conditions.
Seifriedsberger praised the organizers, whose work would have made a second round possible. For example, chainsaws were used to cut drainage channels for the rainwater into the approach lane. “You might already tell from the track, but it was definitely jumpable,” said the winner. Third place behind Takanashi went to the German Katharina Schmid in front of a very large crowd in northern Hesse. On Sunday (11.30 a.m./live ORF 1) there is another women’s jumping on the Mühlenkopfschanze on the program.
