The world championship can come for Katharina Althaus. The ski jumper celebrated a clear success in Romania. For the German World Cup hope it is already the 14th of their career.
This trip was worthwhile for Katharina Althaus: On the last World Cup weekend before the Nordic World Ski Championships, the woman from Oberstdorf celebrated the day’s victory on Friday (02/17/2023) in Rasnov, Romania. A week after her disappointing sixth place in Hinzenbach, she gained a lot of self-confidence for the title fights in Planica.
The 26-year-old won in the absence of some top athletes with distances of 89.5 and 98.5 meters. Althaus landed the best distance of the day. The Austrian World Cup leader Eva Pinkelnig (90 and 93 meters) came second on the normal hill in Transylvania. Pinkelnig was still in the lead at half-time, but in the end she was 12.4 points behind Althaus. Third place went to Eirin Maria Kvandal from Norway (88 and 91.5 meters), who had another 5.3 points less.
Althaus: “Just relax”
The four-time world champion was happy at the sports show microphone after the competition. “I came here and I thought, let’s see what it will be like. I just wanted to show good jumps and my second one was really good now.”she said and explained her good performance in the second round like this: “I thought to myself, just relax and see.”
Althaus flew onto the podium for the ninth time this season and celebrated his sixth win of the season. Most recently, she was on the podium in Hinterzarten and Willingen at the end of January and beginning of February. In the previous week in Hinzenbach, she was still leading at half-time, but then slipped down to sixth place.
First World Cup points for Göbel
Althaus was the only jumper from the German World Championship team who traveled to Rasnov. And among the German B team, she was also the only German ski jumper to make it into the top 15. Agnes Reisch (83.5 meters / 84.0 meters) was 16th, Michelle Göbel (80.0 meters / 82.5 meters) came in 23rd, Juliane Seyfarth (77.5 meters / 83.0 meters) finished 24th place.
The 18-year-old Göbel, who won four Junior World Championships medals, collected her first World Cup points. “I’m satisfied with the performance so far and I’m happy that it worked out with the points“, said Göbel, who is aiming for the top 20 in the second competition in Rasnov on Saturday (02/18/2023) on her 19th birthday.
Laue and Kübler miss the top 30
Josephin Laue and Pia Lilian Kübler missed the leap into the final of the top 30. Laue only jumped 78.5 meters, in 32nd place she was only one point short of the second jump. Kübler landed after 68.5 meters and was third from last.
At the last ski jumping before the Nordic World Ski Championships, some top athletes decided not to start: In addition to almost all German World Championship starters, Chiara Kreuzer and Marita Kramer from Austria, Silje Opseth from Norway and Sara Takanashi from Japan did not travel to Romania. The German quartet Selina Freitag, Luisa Görlich, Anna Rupprecht and Pauline Hessler are preparing for the title fights in Slovenia next week in their home town of Oberstdorf.