On Sunday, Ema Klinec established herself as a high-flyer at the very first women’s ski flying event, which by the way was not (yet) part of the World Cup. The Slovenian set a new world record for women in Vikersund with 226 meters in the first round and also showed consistency with 223.5 in the second heat. Klinec also won the overall ranking of the ten-day Raw Air Tour in Norway.
Silje Opseth (NOR) and Yuki Ito (JPN) finished with a clear deficit on Sunday. As expected following the training sessions, the two Austrians didn’t have a say at the front, but that didn’t play a major role on this historic weekend for women’s ski jumping. Eva Pinkelnig took ninth place in the field of 15 athletes with 168 and 191 m, the last jump was also her best ever. Chiara Kreuzer was eleventh with 159 and 149 meters.
Pinkelnig also looked back on the competition with satisfaction. “I’m the one who was least expected to do it. There are statements from (last) May that you can see the fear in my eyes on the large hill. Now I’m the one on our team who jumped the furthest You see what is possible with faith and trust and listen to the people who see the potential in you, “Pinkelnig calculated in the ORF interview a little with various prophecies of doom.
The competition was not that easy for her because she had to come off the beam twice following one minute each. “It’s unbelievable what our brains show us. Before the second round, it didn’t show me the nice flights, from a Stefan Kraft, for example, but various falls. It’s really cool that I then knock out one like that,” she said happily Vorarlbergerin, who also secured the overall World Cup for the first time.
Kreuzer also looked back on the competition with joy. “It was extremely cool, we all stuck together. I had a lot of fun. The main thing was that we made it this far and got the opportunity now. Each and every one of us certainly jumped,” said Kreuzer. That was also the goal. “Yesterday a few went into the first day with a queasy feeling.”
Kreuzer got a bit of the feeling of flying. “Now I understand why the men are so enthusiastic regarding it. You would like to go up there once more right away.” She hopes that you won’t have to wait so long and that at least one competition will be counted for the World Cup in the coming season. “We 15 have shown that we can do it. Such a scattering is also possible with the men. We are ready for that to be included in the World Cup calendar for us.”
For the women jumpers it’s off to Lahti for the World Cup final next Friday.
Final Raw-Air rating: 1. Ema Klinec (SLO) 1,859.6 points – 2. Katharina Althaus (GER) 1,771.5 – 3. Selina Freitag (GER) 1,704.3. Next (all AUT): 6th Chiara Kreuzer 1,649.7 – 9th Eva Pinkelnig 1,639.3 – 16th Julia Mühlbacher 1,156.1
