ski jumping
Austria took third place in the team competition on the ski flying hill in Planica on Saturday. The quartet Michael Hayböck, Daniel Tschofenig, Manuel Fettner and Stefan Kraft were only beaten by Slovenia and Norway. Kraft was the best Austrian in both rounds.
The hosts, who celebrated a historic quadruple victory in the first of two individual competitions on Friday, ended up 24.2 points ahead of the Norwegians and 56.9 ahead of Austria. In the Nations Cup, the ÖSV team leads the top 30 before the season finale on Sunday with 5,694 points ahead of Slovenia (5,500), Germany (5,339) and Norway (5,222). In addition to the Nations Cup, the overall World Cup ranking will also be awarded on Sunday (10 a.m., live on ORF1), where the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi has an 89-point lead over the German Karl Geiger.
Third place on Saturday was an ÖSV premiere in this winter’s team competitions. Three victories in the World Cup (Wisla, Bischofshofen and Lahti) and the triumph at the Olympic Games faced fourth places at the World Championships in Vikersund and the World Cup in Zakopane.
“It’s really nice”
“Finally I have a jump over the hillsize. I’m super happy that we’re on the podium,” said Kraft in an ORF interview. “You have to congratulate Slovenia. Such weather, such an audience and long flights. It’s really nice again, in front of such a backdrop. We have to deliver tomorrow as well, but it will be very difficult against the Slovenians. I hope they don’t manage a quadruple win again. We’ll still be fighting for two balls tomorrow, and we can be proud of that.”
Fettner wasn’t entirely happy. “I’m happy with third place. There was nothing else inside. Not only Slovenia was extremely strong, but also the Norwegians. We definitely expected more, but I’m happy with the jumps. More was not possible. The jumping is at a high level here.”