Sara Takanashi won the second World Cup in Hinterzarten on Sunday ahead of Irina Avvakumova and Carina Vogt.
The weather conditions here in Hinterzarten changed over night, and so – after an almost perfect competition yesterday – it was a little bit more difficult today. The organizers did a very good job, and so the hill was very well prepared, despite of the warm temperatures. Nevertheless the wind played it’s little game with the jumpers and changed from minute to minute. As there was tailwind most of the time, the average distance of the jumps was not the highest today.
Winner of the competition came once more Sara Takanashi. This is her third victory in a row, and so she has won all World Cups that have been held this winter yet. For her jumps of 96.0 and 98.5 meters she scored the most points in both rounds, and so eventually won with an advantage of 12 points to the second place. “I am not so happy with my jumps today, but I did my best” she said at the press conference with a smile and in English – normally she prefers to speak only Japanese.
Yesterday’s third, Irina Avvakumova from Russia, took the second place today with a pair of jumps of 96.5 and 97.5 meters. “I am very happy with this result and with the whole weekend. It was hard work to get there, but I think this is not my last podium”, she said.
For the joy of the approximately 2500 spectators, that came to the hill, a jumper from Germany took the third place. Carina Vogt jumped 95.0 meters in the first round and so was only sixth at half-time, but by jumping 96.5 meters in the second round she eventually finished third. “I am very happy, not only with my performance today, but also with the whole season so far. Today it quite difficult to jump, especially in the trial round it was very tough to handle the wind”, she said.
The fourth place was taken by Norway’s Helena Olsson Smeby, who jumped 97.5 and 96.0 meters. She was on the ninth place after the first round, as she lost many points to the wind compensation rule. Also Daniela Iraschko-Stolz from Austria improved in the second round. In the first round she jumped only 86.0 meters and so was on the 11th place. 94.5 meters in the second helped her to finish fifth. Maja Vtic from Slovenia came sixth with a pair of jumps of 98.5 and 96.5 meters.
Gianina Ernst from Germany made the farthest jump of the day. She jumped 102.5 meters in the first round – also her second jump of 94.0 meters was a very nice one. But as she lost a lot of points to the wind compensation in both rounds, she finally came only seventh. A little unlucky was also the result of Canada’s Taylor Henrich. By jumping 99.5 meters in the first round she was third at half-time, but then fell back to the eight place with a jump of 92.5 meters in the second round.
Takanashi leads in the overall World Cup with 300 points. Second is Iraschko-Stolz who has 205 points, Avvakumova has now taken the third place with 155 points. The World Cup continues on January 3rd in Chaikovsky, Russia.
RESULTS AND STANDINGS:
Results after the 1st round »
Final results of the competition »
Current overall World Cup standings »