The ladies' season is over!
Yesterday the fourth season of the ladies' rivalry in the World Cup passed into the history. In my opinion it was the most exciting season so far. Why? I'll try to explain.
The past three seasons were dominated by the same athletes - in the first one the main role played Sarah Hendrickson, while in the next two the best was Sara Takanashi. These girls won almost every competition in these seasons and it wasn't anything surprising that they won the overall rankings. Many people kept talking that because of the domination of two athletes the whole ladies' rivalry is getting boring. But in this season everything was different.
The season started with unexpected victory of Slovenia's Spela Rogelj in Lillehamer, who also became the first leader of the World Cup standings. Second place in this competition took Daniela Iraschko-Stolz and third was Sara Takanashi. These two ladies until the end of the season fought with each other for the World Cup victories. Many people said that it was a battle between experience and youth, but what's the most important there were few different athletes beside these two who frequently "jumped" on the podium and that made this season special.
Carina Vogt, Spela Rogelj, Chiara Hoelzl, Irina Avvakumova, Taylor Henrich, Maren Lundby, Nita Englund and Sarah Hendrickson regurally placed in the Top of the competition, making the entire rivalry more exciting and unpredictable, so the third place of the overall ranking often changed owner. Eventually on the final podium stood Carina Vogt, for who this season was amazing - she became the World Champion individual and in the mixed team.
But there was also one girl that was unknown until this season. The star of the huge Austrian talent Eva Pinkelnig shone this winter so bright and the 27-year-old finished 6th in the overall ranking in her debut season and only few years of training.
This ladies' season was full of highest sport emotions, interesting competitions and I can surely say that the best is yet to come!
By Anna Sobol
