Let's go to the North!
The World Cup rivalry as every year moved for it’s last period to the north. Finnish Lahti and Kuopio, then Norwegian Trondheim and Oslo – that’s how looks the ski jumping marathon before the season’s finals in Planica. Unfortunately the main thing in the past few days was wind.
You can say that we already used to it, that the wind is present on the hills in Finland. Organizers used to it too – they installed the anti-wind nets, which secure the athletes during the jump from the very dangerous wind. But in Kuopio even the nets didn’t help. The jury of the competition had to move the competition from the large hill (HS 130) to the normal hill (HS 100). But unfortunately this change also was not enough to provide a fair competition.
The competition in Kuopio has been paused multiple times. The weather conditions didn’t let the competition to be equal and fair and it eventually caused that the jury of the competition cancelled this rivalry after only one round.
The winner of the lottery turned out to be Germany’s Severin Freund, who took the victory ahead of Anders Bardal of Norway and ex aequo placed on the 3rd rank Stefan Kraft and Simon Ammann. The final result turned out to be the most beneficial for Austria’s Kraft, who thanks to reaching the podium moved in the general classification from the second place to the first one and after the competition in Kuopio he got the yellow BIB of the World Cup leader. The previous leader of the overall ranking Slovenia’s Peter Prevc fell after being ranked 17th to the third position of the cup standings. The two leaders – previous one and the current one- are separated by Severin Freund.
Then the rivalry moved to Norwegian Trondheim. But once again the wind was really strong and made the results not equal. In this lottery once again the best turned out to be Severin Freund who also became the new World Cup leader. Unfortunately the leader of the competition Stefan Kraft, who had 12-point advantage ahead of Freund couldn't manage to win due to problems with skis during the jump. Eventually he finished 9th, but many people say that it was miracle that he didn't crash. The second place in the competition took Peter Prevc and third was Rune Velta.
The differences in the Top3 are very small and until the end of the World Cup rivalry everything can change. The opportunity to jump to the Top3 lost Anders Fannemel, who during the competition in Lahti landed bad and suffered a knee injury, and the most possible is that he won’t be able to compete.
Now the rivalry moves to the Norwegian Oslo, as many people say the place where the ski jumping was born. We can only hope that the wind conditions will be fair and they won’t disturb the competition. The certain is that the battle for the overall World Cup victory will be tough and will last to the very end.
By Anna Sobol
