Welcome the new World Champions!
The individual competitions and one of the team competitions of this year’s World Championships are already behind us. The first part of this prestigious event was exciting and full of surpises. Let's take a look at what happened so far.
The Championships began with the ladies' rivalry. Many ski jumping fans thinks that ladies' competitions are not that exciting like the men's ones. Nothing could be further from the truth. The biggest surprise of the ladies' part of the Championships once again became 23-year-old German Carina Vogt. She was considered as a favorite to get the medal, but everyone thought that the main battle for the gold will be held between Daniela Iraschko-Stolz and Sara Takanashi. But once again Vogt proved that she is the best at the prestigious and very important events and exactly one year after the Olympic gold she won her first in career World Champion title. The silver surprisingly went to 20-year-old Japanese Yuki Ito and the bronze medal won Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, who once again comes back home with a medal.
You can read more about the ladies' competition at the Championships in the SkiJumpingItaly's article - [LINK].
But it wasn't the end of the ladies' presence at the World Championships. Some of them got the chance to represent their country in the second in the history of the World Championships mixed team competition. Carina Vogt won her second gold medal with the team of Germany composed of Severin Freund, Richard Freitag and Katharina Althaus. It isn't surprising that when she came back to Germany she was welcomed like a queen. Very good second place and the silver medal won Norway, which fought for gold with the Germans until the very end. Anders Bardal, Rune Velta, Maren Lundby and Line Jahr did a good job and eventually finished ahead of Japan. And that means that experienced Noriaki Kasai once again comes back home with medal, becoming the older World Championships medalist in the history.
You can also find out more about the mixed team competition in the SkiJumpingItaly's article here - [LINK]
The day before came the time of the men's part of the championships. The rivalry began on the normal hill called Lugnet. Surprisingly the winner and the new World Champion became 26-year-old Norwegian Rune Velta, who finished 0.4 point ahead of Germany's Severin Freund and Stefan Kraft of Austria. Velta wasn't considered as the favorite for the championship medal, because despite the fact that he is present in the world's top for few years, doesn't have any World Cup victory on his account. Together with the gold medal the World Championship from the normal hill stay in Norway (the same title two years ago won Anders Bardal).
You can read more about the men's competition on the normal hill in the SkiJumpingItaly's article here - [LINK].
Then the rivalry moved to the large hill, on which the last individual competition of the championships was held. In this competition the best turned out to be the representative of Germany Severin Freund, who won his second gold and third overall medal at this Championships. The silver medal in this competition won Gregor Schlierenzauer and third place took Rune Velta, who also will come back home with at least three World Championships medal.
You can find out more about the large hill competition in the SkiJumpingItaly's article here - [LINK].
Today awaits us the very last competition of the magical World Championships in Falun. Who will win the gold in the team competition? One thing is certain - we will be able to see a great show with the Germans and Norwegians in the main roles.
By Anna Sobol
