ski jumping
Daniel Tschofenig, Michael Hayböck, Jan Hörl and Stefan Kraft made a big step towards winning the Nations Cup on Saturday. The Austrian quartet confidently secured victory in the team competition in Lahti ahead of Slovenia and Poland and thus extended the red-white-red lead in the Nations Cup over the first pursuer Norway to over 1,000 points with four competitions still open.
The Austrians, who had already clearly led at halftime, got their second victory in the fourth team competition of the season with a lead of 26.2 points over the world champions from Slovenia. The Polish quartet was already 35.0 points behind the red-white-red “Adler”, of which Hörl showed the team’s longest jump of 130.0 m in the second round.
Norway had to settle for fourth place in Lahti and is now 1,094 points behind the Austrians in the Nations Cup. On Sunday (3.10 p.m., live on ORF1) there is still an individual competition on the large Salpausselkä hill in Finland. Next weekend the three-part season finale – including a team competition – on the Planica ski jump is on the program.
Hörl flies at 130.0 m
The man from Salzburg confidently defended the lead of the Austrians in the second round with his jump of 130.0 m
Lahti remains good ground
The joy of the Austrian jumpers was correspondingly great after they were able to further tighten their grip on the Nations Cup. “It was really cool at the end when you know you’re almost 30 points ahead. But it’s not that easy, because you still have to keep the tension high. It’s easy to slip up and you can’t afford that. We had a really cool competition today. The trip here has already paid off,” said Kraft in an ORF interview.
His teammates were also satisfied. Tschofenig (“Everyone made very, very good jumps”) and Hörl (“Lahti is difficult with the conditions. But nobody really missed out, nobody made a big mistake.”) praised the nerves of steel of the entire team . For Hayboeck, the Bakken in Lahti once again proved to be an Austrian hill. “We really, really like going here. It was again a very satisfying competition for our team today,” said the Upper Austrian.
Good news for Kubacki
Meanwhile, good news came from Poland by Dawid Kubacki. The overall World Cup runner-up ended his season prematurely last weekend due to a life-threatening cardiological emergency affecting his wife. His wife is now stable and making progress every day, the former world champion reported on Instagram on Saturday.