The quartet won with a lead of 24.2 points over Norway. Austria’s team of Michael Hayböck, Daniel Tschofenig, Manuel Fettner and Stefan Kraft came third.
Kraft and Co. were 56.9 points short of victory, but head coach Andreas Widholzl’s squad kept the Slovenians at a distance in the Nations Cup before the final day of the Olympic season. Red-white-red still have a lead of 194 points, and the second-placed Slovenians are expected to continue their race to catch up on Sunday.
Difficult starting point
On Saturday, Ziga Jelar and Co. scored 245 points more than the Austrians. If they succeed in a similarly strong performance, the Slovenians could still snatch the Nations Cup from Austria. Kraft, who is still fighting for victory in the fight for the small crystal ball in the Ski Flying World Cup, knows how difficult the starting position is. “We have to make our jumps, we can’t slow down the Slovenians. They can only beat themselves if they do,” said Kraft in an ORF TV interview. “It will be very difficult for us, but I got a good feeling today.” Fettner also fared well, and on Sunday Daniel Huber and Jan Hörl were back in action. “Maybe Kobayashi or Lindvik can annoy the Slovenians a bit too. A quadruple win, I hope they don’t succeed again.”
“Fighting for Two Bullets”
Even before the last jumps, Kraft drew a positive summary of the season: “We’re fighting for two balls on the last day, a mega season. We can be very proud. Tomorrow I’ll enjoy the day again, maybe the hill size will work out again .”
With this, Kraft was referring to his 241 m flight in the second round, which was only 12.5 m short of his still valid world record. “Now I’ve got my (flight) over the Hillsize. I’ve been waiting for it for three weekends.”
Tomorrow the big crystal ball will finally be awarded
On Sunday (from 09.50 live ORF 1) the big World Cup crystal ball will finally be awarded, even if it is already “reserved” for the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi. He is 89 points ahead of Karl Geiger. It would be his second overall World Cup victory after 2018/19 (then before Kraft) and only the second for Japan.
Manuel Fettner can also look forward to a great season. At the age of 36, the Tyrolean, notorious for being a “non-flyer”, has blossomed into a top performer even on the largest hills, as 222 and 224.5 m have proved. “You could see very clearly that you can’t do better than third place. Today not only the Slovenians were extremely strong, but also the Norwegians. Of course we all expected more, we definitely wanted to jump to second place today,” admitted Fettner, who, like all the other athletes, raved about the “goosebumps feeling” caused by the great crowd atmosphere in Planica.
The traditional location is the scene of the World Cup season finale for the 33rd time. With 95 World Cup competitions held so far, Planica is also the place with the most World Cup competitions. Not least because of this, the first-time staging of the Nordic World Championships in 2023 seems well deserved.
Source: Nachrichten
