The veteran made it into the top 50 in 45th place out of 55 participants in the qualification on Friday when Tyrolean Manuel Fettner won in the snowstorm. This means he will also be in Sapporo on Saturday (8 a.m./ORF 1), four years following his last start so far make his 570th World Cup appearance.
At 51 years, 8 months and 10 days, Kasai set another age record in the Ski Jumping World Cup. Most recently, with good performances in the Continental Cup, he recommended himself for the World Cup squad for the Japanese, who have several starting places in the qualification in Sapporo. In any case, his long-time companions in the ski jumping circus were very happy to see him once more. The Pole Kamil Stoch (36) posted a photo on Instagram with the Swiss Simon Ammann (42) and Kasai.
Debuted in 1988
Kasai celebrated his debut in the World Cup in December 1988, and the multiple World Cup and Olympic medalist celebrated his last of a total of 17 individual victories in November 2014 when he was 42 years old at the time. In the qualification, all six ÖSV Adler made it into the competition with ease. Daniel Tschofenig came fourth, overall World Cup leader Stefan Kraft took tenth place, directly ahead of Jan Hörl. Clemens Aigner (32nd) and Daniel Huber (37th) are also qualified.
With his next and 39th win, Kraft might catch up with the third-placed Poles Stoch and Adam Malysz in the all-time best list. Only Matti Nykänen (46) and Gregor Schlierenzauer (53) are ahead of Kraft. The Salzburg player was optimistic following winning training and not having an ideal qualifying run. “Sapporo is a hill that I really, really like. It worked really well straight away. Grooved in twice – I’m confident that it will be a good competition,” said Kraft. On Sunday, following the new qualification, another individual competition is on the program.
