Sara Takanashi won in Ramsau ahead of Coline Mattel and Daniela Iraschko.
Overall World Cup leader Sara Takanashi (JPN) won today’s World Cup competition in Ramsau and so celebrated her second season win. There was sunny and nice weather all day, but during the competition, that was held in the evening, there was some tailwind almost all the time. Because of these difficult conditions the jumps today were in general not the farthest ones.
After the first round Coline Mattel from France was leading with a nice jump of 86.5 meters ahead of Slovenia’s Maja Vtic (89.5 m) and America’s Jessica Jerome (87.0 m), that both shared the second place. Fourth behind them was Takanashi with a nice 86.5 meter jump. Local heroine Daniela Iraschko, who eventually came third, was by then on the ninth place (84.0 m). Italy’s Evelyn Isam showed a really nice 90.0 meter jump in this first round, but unfortunately fell when landing. In the end she took the 17th place.
The second round was one of the most exciting and thrilling ones ever, as there was only a margin of eight points between the first and the tenth place at half-time. Much to the pleasure of the approximately 200 spectators a really great 94.0 meter jump helped Iraschko to jump from nine to three. “My jumps got better and better since Lillehammer. In the trainings here I jumped very bad, so I cannot complain because of this third place. Actually I am totally happy with this result. It is a pity that we only have one World Cup in Austria this year. It always gives me more motivation, if I am able to jump in my own country”, she said.
Mattel, leader after the first round, jumped 93.0 meters in the final round. Nevertheless she eventually scored 2.4 points less then Takanashi, who jumped 91.5 meters and so came second. One of the reasons that the French was beaten by the Japanese was, that she missed to land the second jump in Telemark-Style and so got only low points by the judges. “I still have some problems to land far jumps with a Telemark. And especially on this hill this is very difficult to achieve. But I will keep working on this”, she said. Nevertheless Mattel seemed to be content with her result today: “After the World Cup in Sochi we went to Chaux-Neuve and jumped there on Tuesday. I did not jump so well, but here in Ramsau I immediately had a good feeling for my jumping again. In total I am satisfied with my jumps here in Ramsau”, she said at the press conference.
Winner Takanashi, who is also hill record holder here in Ramsau, set at the Continental Cups two years ago, said: “There are two reasons why I like the hill in Ramsau so much. The first one is the steepness of the inrun and the pressure I feel before jumping off. This really matches my way to jump. And the second reason is that I totally like the place here. When I wake up in the morning and see this beautiful landscape, then I just feel good and relaxed. This makes it easy to jump! The wind conditions today did not bother me so much, because I did a lot of training under tailwind conditions”
Vtic and Jerome, that shared the second place after the first round, both fell back in the final. Jerome came fifth with a second jump of 87.0 meters. Vtic even was knocked out of the top ten and finished on place 13 with a 84.0 meter jump. With Lindsey Van (84.5 and 89.5 m) on rank four and Sarah Hendrickson (85.0 and 86.5 m) on rank seven it was again a very good team result for the United States. Remarkable is also the performance of Austria’s Jacqueline Seifriedsberger. After being 13th after the first round (84.0 m) she eventually came fifth by jumping 90.5 meters in the final round.
In the overall World Cup Takanashi extended her lead and has now 340 points. Second is Mattel with 266 points, third Hendrickson with 252 points.
RESULTS AND STANDINGS:
Results after the 1st round »
Final results of the competition »
Current overall World Cup standings »
Current Nations Cup standings »