Sarah Hendrickson won in Predazzo / Val di Fiemme ahead of Sara Takanashi and Jacqueline Seifriedsberger.
What a thrilling competition! The individual competition at the World Championships in Val di Fiemme was one of the most exciting ones we ever had. Deserved winner of this competition and so World Champion 2013 came Sarah Hendrickson. The 18-year old American made a pair of jumps of 106.0 and 103.0 meters and so won by 2.7 points ahead of Japan’s Sara Takanashi, who jumped 104.5 and 103.0 meters and so won the silver medal. The fact that there were only 2.7 points between them just shows, what a close battle they had today. Winner of the bronze medal came Austria’s Jacqueline Seifriedsberger with jumps of 104.0 and 98.5 meters.
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fot. Stefan Diaz
Hendrickson is already the second World Champion from America, after Lindsey Van won the title in 2009. It was one of the moments of the day, that Van – together with Jessica Jerome – carried Henrickson on her shoulders.
With Sarah and Sara the two dominating jumpers of the last two years took the first two places, nevertheless this result is a little surprising, as Takanashi won the last four World Cups with such a great advantage, that a lot of people thought she’s unbeatable. Also Hendrickson confirmed that: “I definitely had doubts in my mind this week, because Sara jumped so strong in Zao and Ljubno. I definitely knew that is was going to be a tough fight. Even when I was in the lead after the first round I was absolutely not sure that I could win. It needs two jumps counting equally the same”, she said at the press conference. She also praised the conditions here in Val di Fiemme: “The hill was perfectly prepared and the weather was pretty fair.” Takanashi explained: “World Cup and World Championships are totally different, but all I can do is doing my best. So I came to Predazzo to do my best and did not think so much abut the latest results”, she said. Seifriedsberger pointed to the dominating role of Hendrickson and Takanashi: “It is always difficult to compete against the Sara(h)s. So I am just happy with the bronze medal, it is just amazing”, she said.
Also behind the three medalists the competition was really a high-class one. One had to jump 87.0 meters today to see the final round, so the performance of the entire field and not only of the best jumpers was very strong today. So places four to six were taken by France’s Coline Mattel (102.0 and 95.5 m), Germany’s Carina Vogt (99.5 and 96.0 m) and America’s Jessica Jerome (100.0 and 98.0 m). Seventh came Norway’s Anette Sagen (97.0 and 94.5 m), ahead of local heroine Evelyn Insam who made jumps of 96.0 and 92.5 meters. To mention is also the result of Austria’s Chiara Hölzl. After participating before mainly in the Alpen Cup she immediately took the 9th place at her first World Championships and so simply is the break-through athlete of these Championships. Eventually Julia Kykkänen from Finland took the 10th place, that’s also one of her best career results.
RESULTS:
Results after the 1st round »
Final results of the competition »
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