Rune Velta with the World Champion title!

26-year-old Norwegian Rune Velta wasn't considered as a favorite for the World Championships medal. But once again he showed that he belongs to the world's top and became the World Champion at the normal hill!

Representative of Norway once again proved that he can play the main role at the prestigious events, despite the fact, that he doesn't have yet on his account the victory in the World Cup competition. Not so long ago, in 2012 in Vikersund, during the World Championships in ski flying he won the silver medal and was beaten only by Slovenia's Robert Kranjec. In today's competition he had no equal. At the normal hill Lugnet in Falun the Norwegian became the World Champion and achieved his greatest success in career, by finishing 0.4 points ahead of Severin Freund and Stefan Kraft.

Rune Velta gave today two equal jumps, both on 95,5 meter. It was enough to achieve a final triumph, less than half a point ahead of Severin Freund, who showed today jumps on 95,5 and 96 meters, setting the new record of the Lugnet normal hill. The bronze medal went to the best Austrian Stefan Kraft, who landed twice on 95 meter. Unfortunately the rest of the Austrian team didn't manage to get close to the result of Kraft. Michael Hayboeck finished 21st, Gregor Schlierenzauer 22nd and Thomas Diethart was ranged 27th.

Much better performed Czech Roman Koudelka, who finished the competition just behind the podium with two equal jumps on a distance of 93,5 meters. On the 5th place was ranked Taku Takeuchi with two jumps of 93 meters he turned out to be the best among the Japanese jumpers, while Noriaki Kasai with the jump of 86,5 meters didn't manage to find himself in the final round. 6th was the previous World Champion from the normal hill Anders Bardal, who comes back to jumping after injury, with distances of 93 and 91,5 meters, 7th was Richard Freitag with jumps of 91,5 and 90,5 meters, 8th place took surprisingly the best among the representatives of Poland Jan Ziobro, who jumped twice on 91,5 meters, and the Top 10 was closed by Anders Fannemel with 92 and 89 meters and Marinus Kraus with 90,5 and 91 meters.

Rather disappointing performance have behind them Peter Prevc and Kamil Stoch, who were favorites for the medal. Slovenia's Prevc finished the competition on the 13th position with jumps of 92 and 87,5 meters, while the double Olympic champion from Poland took the 17th place ex aequo with his teammate Klemens Murańka with jumps of 90 and 89 meters.

Tomorrow will be held the mixed team competition on the normal hill. Start of the competition is sheduled at 5pm CET. Here are the full results of today's competition - [LINK].

By Anna Sobol (@AnneAZS)

#worldchampionships #falun2015 #runevelta #severinfreund #stefankraft #normalhillindividual