Peter Prevc won the competition in Trondheim and made a big step towards winning the overall World Cup title. While the difficult wind conditions couldn't really affect the Slovenian Ski Flying World Champion, who jumped on 135 m and 132 m and scored 285.5 points, his main opponents lost some ground. Stefan Kraft and Noriaki Kasai came in second and third.

The Slovene said later: "It wasn't easy, you also needed a bit of luck and I had that. But I was also jumping really well. I don't think that the wind has less influence because of my style of jumping, even if it might look like this way. Regarding the overall World Cup, we are only about in the middle of the season. I still have to be patient and show good performances until Planica. Last year in Vikersund I was the hero with 250 m on Saturday, a day later I jumped only on 130 m. It will be interesting."

Kraft excited to fly

Stefan Kraft proved his strong shape with jumps on 135 m and 131.5 m and 273.2 points. The Austrian said: "I like the hill a lot and I was always jumping well here. Now I'm looking forward to the ski flying event, this is the coolest thing for a ski jumper. I hope I can make a lot of flights over 200 meters. I was already in a good shape at the beginning of the season, but the results weren't as good as I had hoped. Fortunately it's better again now, my jumps are more stable again."

Kasai with hill record

Noriaki Kasai provided the highlight of the day with his record jump on 143 m in the final round. After the first round the 43-year-old was only tenth with 127 m. With 266.8 points the Japanese achieved his third podium result this season. Kasai said: "I'm happy and very satisfied. The first jump was difficult because of the conditions. After the landing in the final I felt some pain in my knees but now I'm looking forward to Vikersund. I hope I can win there three times."

10.4 points behind, Michael Hayboeck finished fourth with 130.5 m and 134 m. Daiki Ito, the winner of the qualification, achieved his best result this season in fifth with jumps on 125.5 m and 131 m and 254.9 points.

Career-best for Stekala

Poland's Andrzej Stekala could celebrate the best result of his career in the World Cup in sixth with 253.6 points. The Norwegian fans were probably not completely happy with the results of their own athletes. The best Norwegian was Daniel Andre Tande in seventh with 252.9 points, his teammate Kenneth Gangnes followed in eighth 0.7 points behind.

Freund loses ground

While Andreas Wank could celebrate a good ninth place and was the best German with 250.9 points, overall World Cup winner Severin Freund was only tenth, 0.4 points behind his teammate, and suffered a set back in the fight to defend this title. Joachim Hauer and Andreas Stjernen in 11th and 12th completed an overall still very strong result for the Norwegian team. Dawid Kubacki achieved a good 13th place for the Polish team, Jurij Tepes completed the Top 15.

Ammann and Stoch behind

Simon Ammann was only 25th, behind former 4-Hills-Tournament winner Andreas Kofler. Double Olympic champion Kamil Stoch finished only 28th. Roman Koudelka and world record holder Anders Fannemel surprisingly failed to qualify for the final round.

Peter Prevc, who equalled Primoz Peterka as the most successful Slovenian ski jumper with his 15th World Cup win, now scored a total of 1324 points and has a lead of 443 points over Severin Freund in the overall World Cup. Kenneth Gangnes follows in third with 770 points.

Next weekend three individual competitions will be held on the monster hill in Vikersund.

Source: fis-ski.com