Sara Takanashi has won the first competition of the new season of the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup Ladies. The Japanese took the win and celebrated her 31th World Cup win with jumps of 95,5 and 97,5 metres and 251,7 points ahead of Maja Vtic and Maren Lundby.
Takanashi said: “I didn´t expect this win, but it was my goal. I am very happy about it. My goal for the season is to jump stable in every condition, like today. I want to win the overall World Cup, but it´s more important to concentrate on my jumps now.”
Maja Vtic has satisfied the Slovenian Team today. The longest jump of the day with 101,5 metres in the first round and 93,0 metres in the final round brought her 240,2 points and the best result of her career so far. The Slovenian said:” I am very happy and also surprised, I did not expect to be on the podium. I was in Nizhny Tagil only once in this summer. But when you are in good shape, every hill is fun.”
Maren Lundby was celebrated for her third place by the Norwegian fans and her jumps of 96,0 and 92,0 metres, resulting in 233,6 points.
Lundby comments: ”It´s a great start for the season in front of the home crowd. I already knew, that I was on a good way. But I didn´t see the podium coming for today. The conditions were not easy, because the wind was turning. But it was ok and better than the qualification.”
Overall World Cup winner Daniela Iraschko-Stolz could only make up for her first jump. She was only sixth after her first jump with 88,5 metres, but could improve with a strong final jump of 95,0 metres to fourth place. She missed the podium by only 2,7 points.
Team mate Chiara Hoelzl finished close behind her with 94,5 and 90,0 metres. This fifth place is the second best result of her career so far. Jaqueline Seifriedsberger and Eva Pikelnig completed the strong Austrian team performance with 224,0 points and sixth place and 223,1 points and seventh position.
The Italian Elena Runggaldier could celebrate a good start into the season with her place eight and 219,8 points. Juliane Seyfarth was best, of an overall disappointing German team, with 217,7 points and ninth place.
On of the favorites, the Japanese Yuki Ito could not be satisfied with her 216,1 points and place 10. The Canadian Taylor Henrich was followed by the two Russians Sofia Tikhonova and Irina Avvakumova, who missed on the top ten with finishing 12th and 13th. Tikonova missed the top ten due to her bad landing in the final round. Olympic winner and World Champion Carina Vogt had to accept her 15th rank behind Elisabeth Raudaschl. Tara Geraghty-Moats could secure the best place of the American team with her 17th ranking. The Romanian Daniela Haralambie could celebrate her best World Cup result so far with finishing 21th, while Mixed-World Champion Katharina Althaus could not be happy with her 25th place. She followed her team mate Svenja Würth and Anna Rupprecht in the ranking. The winner of the qualification Julia Clair missed the final cut finishing 31th in the first round.
Source: fis-ski.com
