Ilves hopes to turn 'struggle and hard times' into battle for Riiber's crown: 'The king's throne is open'
Apr 15, 2025·Nordic Combined)
Before the 2024/2025 season of the Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined World Cup, Kristjan Ilves (EST), with three consecutive top-five finishes in the men's overall standing, was hoping to take the next step.
Instead, the Estonian 28-year-old looks back at a season where he felt he was "not in my own body when I'm jumping", hoping to use the summer break to kick back from his overall 10th place and fight for retiring Norwegian superstar Jarl Magnus Riiber's throne as the sport's No.1.
"The emotions are really bad to be honest. The jumping has been really stably bad for the whole season and it continues here so it is really a struggle and hard times," Ilves said after finishing in 20th place in the Compact at the 2025 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim (NOR) in March.
"Since the beginning of the season, something has been wrong with the jumping. I don't have the feeling on the jumping, I feel like I'm not in my own body and everything is really chaotic. It's just been going on and on, from one competition to another.
Ilves finished in 11th place in Trondheim's Gundersen and pulled off a ninth, 10th and 11th place – all in Gundersen – in the World Cup before the season ended. But it was still far from his fourth (Gundersen Large) and sixth (Gundersen Normal) places at the Planica (SLO) 2023 World Championships, and from his results in the previous three years on the world tour.
"We have to think about what has gone wrong because I don't think that my summer was bad in the jumping hill," Ilves said.
"I was smooth and stabile in training throughout the whole summer so it felt pretty good but suddenly, when it became competition season, something went off and the struggle just went on and on."
Despite struggling to find his shape, the home World Championships will be something to remember for the athlete from Estonia's second largest city, Tartu.
"It's really special (to compete in Trondheim)," he said.
"I've been living in Trondheim for many years now and it is my hometown so it is crazy to see that crowd and everything. It is special here with the World Championships, that's for sure."
Ilves started training with the Norwegian team ahead of the 2019/2020 season and moved to the Nordic Combined superpower to to rub shoulders with some of the best athletes in the world.
"It has been a crazy journey," he said.
The Estonian, who made his World Cup debut in Sochi (RUS) in 2013, finds it hard to pick one thing in his new home country that has made him improve as an athlete.
"There have been many. Of course, the routine, the mentality, the food – it's the whole package. I have got more professional," he said.
It was easier to point out what he was missing the most after his move.
"It's definitely been the family," Ilves said.
"You move away and don't see your family that often and when I came here it was the Covid years as well, so it was really difficult to find a way how to get in and out, staying in quarantine. That was probably the most difficult part."
And culturally, he has not found Norway being very different to Estonia.
After a summer of evaluation awaits a season that is interesting in several ways. At his fourth Winter Olympic Games, Milano Cortina (ITA) 2026 in February, Ilves hopes to improve on his best Games result so far; a Gundersen Large Hill ninth place from Beijing 2022.
With the five-time World Cup overall winner Riiber retiring this winter, the men's competitions could turn into a more open affair with several candidates for the podium and Riiber's crown as the best in the world there to be taken.
"I really hope that it's going to be me (taking over) because last season I was really close to him," Ilves said.
"First of all I feel like now that the king's throne is open, there's going to be many, many good fights for the victory and I think that there are many, many guys who are really good so it will be an interesting year after he quits.
Ilves landed his first World Cup podium in Hakuba (JPN) in February 2018 and has 12 top-three finishes on the tour to his name, the last one coming in Ramsau (AUT) in December, his only podium in the season that just ended.
His first victory has however yet to come and Ilves is very clear about what needs to work for it to happen in the 2025/2026 season; he needs to get his jumping shape back.
"In Nordic Combined, you just have to put two things together in one day and that's the key for everyone," he said.
"For me, personally, as this year shows; if you don't have the ski jumps, you're out for the podium or even top-10, so that's the key for victory; to jump well first."
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