Stefan Kraft won the World Cup competition in Zakopane with two jumps of 133 m and 307.3 points. Together with Michael Hayboeck he secured a double victory for Austria. Third place went to Peter Prevc (SLO).

In front of 22 500 enthusiastic fans in a sold out arena, Kraft took the long-awaited first season win for the Austrians. He was more than happy about this result: “It was a great competition, my first win this season. Being on top of the podium ahead of Michael is awesome. After I closely missed the podium four times, it's great to stand on top of it now."

"One of the best jumps"

After his jump of 130.5 m in the first round, Hayboeck jumped 138 m in the final and moved to second place with 299.8 points. He said: "I'm very happy. Because of the double victory for Austria this is the best second place for me. My second jump was one of the best this season. It was a great competition and a great weekend for Austria."

"Zakopane is special"

Prevc had the longest jump of the day with 140 m in the first round and even got the maximum of 20.0 twice by the judges. He the final he jumped on only 125 m and scored 296.7 points. So the Slovenian Ski Flying World Champion missed his fifth World Cup win in a row. He said afterwards: "I'm very happy to be on the podium. It's always special here in Zakopane. My first jump was very good, in the second round I made a mistake at the take-off, that's why I couldn't jump that far."

Norwegians closely miss the podium

With Kenneth Gangnes (130.5 m and 131.5 m for 288.4 points) and Johann Andre Forfang (128.5 m and 133 m for 281.9 points) the Norwegians missed the podium this time in fourth and fifth. Richard Freitag was the best of the Germans in sixth with 276.3 points. Like the team competition, the German team had a mediocre performance. Besides Freitag, only Andreas Wellinger and Stephan Leyhe in 18th and 19th scored World Cup points. Young Japanese Ryoyo Kobayashi had two great jumps that earned him a total of 275.8 points and finished on a sensational seventh place. This was the first ever Top 10 result in his career. In front of his home crowd Kamil Stoch could not follow up on his top performances in the qualification and the team competition. With 274.7 points the 2013/14 overall World Cup winner came in eighth, it's now about a year since he won his last World Cup in Willingen.

Jumpers of seven nations in the Top 10

With 273.5 points, Slovenia's Domen Prevc and Czech Roman Koudelka tied for ninth and so athletes of seven nations finished in the Top 10. The third-best Norwegian, Daniel Andre Tande, followed in eleventh. Swiss Simon Ammann came in 13th, followed by the two Norwegians Andreas Stjernen and Anders Fannemel. The Polish athletes presented themselves in an improved shape in their home event. Six jumpers qualified for the final round.

Peter Prevc extends lead

Prevc now has a total of 1084 points in the overall World Cup and extended his lead over the injured Severin Freund to now 305 points. Kenneth Gangnes is third with 725 points. The World Cup will now travel to Japan, where two individual World Cup competitions will be held on the HS 134 on January 30th and 31st.

Source: fis-ski.com