At the end of the second stop of the “Raw Air” tour, the German ski jumpers once again missed the podium in Trondheim. Katharina Schmid’s race to catch up couldn’t change that. In contrast, Slovenia’s Nika Prevc celebrated her seventh World Cup victory.
Prevc prevailed on the large hill on Wednesday (March 13, 2024) with jumps of 127 and 128 meters (260.2 points), just ahead of Eirin Maria Kvandal. The Norwegian had won the last two competitions and was also in the lead at halftime in Trondheim. In the end, Prevc was just ahead with a lead of 1.6 points. Third place went to the Austrian Eva Pinkelnig, who was able to defend her place (-3.4 points).
Schmid makes up seven places
Katharina Schmid, on the other hand, still lacks consistency. After the “Raw Air” tour had started so promisingly for her in Oslo, the multiple world champion was unable to repeat her performance of previous days at the second competition in Trondheim. With another weak first jump (113 meters), the Oberstdorf native lost her reward early on.
Although she made it into the top ten with a much better second attempt (125 meters), she was unable to attack the podium in seventh place. Schmid also trumped her teammate Selina Freitag, who was the best German the day before with seventh place. At halftime, the 22-year-old from Saxony was still well ahead of Schmid, but was able to maintain her ninth place thanks to two solid jumps in the final.
Friday after the first round on course for the top ten
After her seventh place the day before, Friday started with a tailwind from the large hill – in the truest sense of the word. Nevertheless, she defied the unfavorable conditions and managed a flight down to 115.5 meters in the first round – ninth place at halftime. “The conditions were not easy. The feeling of flying wasn’t quite as nice“Friday argued afterwards, why she only “partly satisfied” was.
Schmid also had to struggle with a tailwind. In contrast to her teammate, however, she had to make a lot of corrections in flight and landed disappointed after just 113 meters. For comparison: The best distance in the first round was 127.5 meters – set by Kvandal, who scored almost 30 points more than Schmid. Schmid showed in the second round that she can do better. However, the mortgage proved to be too large to make the leap forward.
As on the previous day, the German ski jumpers also showed a mixed team result across the board. Only Anna Rupprecht missed the jump into the second round, Agnes Reisch in 16th place, Luisa Görlich in 21st place and Julian Seyfarth in 26th place. However, as so often this season, they were unable to set any accents with a view to the top places. However, Reisch’s performance was pleasing, as she once again made it into the top 20 with 117 and 119.5 meters.
Ski flying World Cup at Monsterbakken for the first time
A premiere is coming up for the ski jumpers at the end of the “Raw Air” series. For the first time, they are holding two ski flying World Cup competitions on the Monsterbakken in Vikersund. The 15 best athletes in the overall World Cup are eligible to start, plus five athletes from the top 15 of the current “Raw Air” tour.