oriaki Kasai survived the qualification for the World Cup in Sapporo and thus wrote a piece of ski jumping history.
The Japanese finished in 45th place and will compete in the 570th World Cup competition of his career on Saturday at the age of 51 – both numbers are unique records.
“It’s really crazy what Noriaki does”said former national coach Werner Schuster at Eurosport: “I really had to laugh. I jumped against him myself, and he just jumped against my son in the Continental Cup. He jumps across generations.”
First World Cup since 2020
Last year in Sapporo, Kasai narrowly failed twice in qualifying, coming in 51st and 55th. Now he has shown himself to be in better shape with a jump of 106.0 m and is taking part in a World Cup competition for the first time since February 2020.
He even finished 23rd in training. Kasai made his debut in the World Cup in December 1988 – still in the parallel style.
Raimund best German
The winner of the qualification, which had to be postponed by an hour due to heavy snowfall, was the Austrian Manuel Fettner with 136.5 m. As the best German, Philipp Raimund impressed in third place a week after the first podium finish of his career.
Andreas Wellinger (13th), Karl Geiger (18th), Stephan Leyhe (20th), Felix Hoffmann (28th) and Pius Paschke (33rd) also made it into the competition of the best 50.