Four-Hills-Tournament winner Stefan Kraft was voted the "Newcomer of the Year" in Austria.

The 22-year-old won the public vote ahead of Vanessa Bittner (Junior World Champion in speed skating) and Felix Gall (Junior World Champion in cycling).

"This is a really big award. Being nominated in this category is a huge honor and it also shows me that I must have been really strong last year", said Kraft.

Training is the priority

The Austrian could not accept the award himself, because the team is currently training in Oberstdorf, Germany. Instead of him, Andreas Goldberger went on stage in Vienna. The ski jumping legend will hand over the ward to the winner at the World Cup opening. "Unfortunately it wasn't possible any other way. We can only jump on this hill on these few days, afterwards it's already reserved for Germany and other nations. It's very important to train here on the ice track before the start of the World Cup season."

After the first few training jumps this week in the Erdinger Arena, Stefan Kraft sees himself on the right track towards the winter. "For me it went really well here right from the start. I could target the last line on the hill a few times and this is always a good sign. I feel really good already, but of course there are still some small things that we want to try in order to be among the best internationally as well."

Source: fis-ski.com