Ski jumping: Austria in the mixed team competition in Willingen 2.

Chiara Kreuzer, Eva Pinkelnig, Jan Hörl and Stefan Kraft were only beaten by Norway, the Scandinavians were 35.5 points ahead after just one round. The final round was canceled due to dangerous wind conditions, but the result still counted. Third place went to Germany.

The extreme conditions meant that the Slovenian Timi Zajc was carried by an extreme updraft to an enormous distance of 161.5 m and fell there. The 22-year-old then gave the all-clear, but was quite shocked. Immediately afterwards, Kraft secured second place for Austria with a jump on 148.5 m. The second round was then correctly canceled. Obviously, the qualification for the Saturday men’s singles (4:00 p.m.), which was now scheduled before the competition (2:45 p.m.), was no longer held. The weather conditions should be much better there.

“The competition was brutally difficult, my head was pretty empty at the top, it was really very long,” said Kraft. Thanks to his strong jump on the Mühlenkopfschanze, the 29-year-old from Salzburg brought the ÖSV team up to second place. “Second place is great for us,” emphasized Kraft. In the competitions of the season so far, there have been places one and two. In December in Titisee-Neustadt, the Austrians with the line-up of Kraft, Michael Hayböck, Sara Marita Kramer and Pinkelnig were at the top of the podium.

In addition to Kraft, Kreuzer was also able to convince with a 145 meter jump. Hörl landed at 134 meters. “Krafti and Chiara showed incredible jumps, Jan was very solid,” summed up Pinkelnig. She herself still has a “little bit of respect” on the hill, where she landed after 115 meters. That’s human and okay. The challenge for the next two days is to turn that off. Hopefully the task will also be easier for the jury due to an improvement in the weather. “It almost blows us away, I have to hold on to the skis cleverly,” the Vorarlberg native said in an interview.