Birun Shao became the winner of Thursday’s FIS Cup competition at the Puijo hill (HS100) in Kuopio, Finland. The athlete from China won thanks to her jumps at a distance of 101.5 m and 84 m. The Austrians – Julia Muehlbacher and Hannah Wiegele – also stood on the podium.
The longest jump of the first round belonged to Birun Shao. The Chinese achieved a result of 101.5 meters and she was leading with an advantage of 1.2 points over Julia Muehlbacher (96.5 m) and 1.9 points over Qingyue Peng (99 m). The fourth was Xiaotong Ni (100.5 m), the fifth was Hannah Wiegele (91 m), and the sixth was Kurumi Ichinohe (89.5 m).
In the final round, the athletes reached much shorter distances. Birun Shao sealed her first international victory with an 84 meter flight. The Chinese defeated Julia Muehlbacher (83 m) by half a point. Hannah Wiegele (83.5 m) reached the lowest step of the podium, 12.4 points behind the winner. Kurumi Ichinohe (83 m), Bing Dong (91 m) and Xiaotong Ni (75 m) were ranked just behind the top three athletes of the day.
Despite being on the start list, the FIS Cup leader, Russian Mariia Yakovleva didn’t take part in the Thursday competition.
In the FIS Cup overall standings, Mariia Yakovleva (200 points) is ahead of Bing Dong (185 points) and Birun Shao (169 points).
A second competition in Kuopio is scheduled for Friday. The trial round will begin at 8:00 CET.