Historic home victory for Slovenia's ski jumpers
Mar 05, 2023·Ski Jumping
The team from Slovenia won the World Champion title in the final team competition from the large hill.
Lovro Kos, Ziga Jelar, Timi Zajc and Anze Lanisek secured the title in a thrilling competition ahead of the teams from Norway and Austria.
It was a magical evening for the host country. Thousands of fans had traveled to Planica after Timi Zajc's gold medal on Friday. They all hoped for another unforgettable competition. And they could celebrate for the second time in two days as Lovro Kos, Ziga Jelar, Timi Zajc and Anze Lanisek showed an outstanding performance and took the historic gold.
All four Slovenians jumped at the highest level and seemed to cheer each other on from jump to jump. Kos opened the competition with his jump to 135 meters. Jelar and Zajc followed and Lanisek put Slovenia in the lead after the first round with his 135.5 meters.
All four Slovenians jumped above 130 meters. And even if they fell behind their opponents for a short time, they came back to the top. In the end they took gold with a lead of almost 13 points ahead of Norway.
It is the first ever gold for Slovenia in a team competition, and in front of thousands of Slovenian fans who will no doubt celebrate it for a long time on Saturday evening in the famous Kranjska Gora. It was a magical moment for the host country. After a slow start in the championships, they won two gold medals within two days.
Norway was in second place after the first round and second overall. Although World Cup leader Halvor Egner Granerud did not make the podium in the individual event, he contributed to two medals - in a mixed team event and on Saturday night. Johann Andre Forfang and Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal did a great job, and Marius Lindvik showed solid jumps.
Austria (Daniel Tschofenig, Michael Hayboeck, Jan Hoerl, Stefan Kraft) took bronze.
It could have been an extremely close fight for the podium, because Kraft landed at 127 meters. However, the two head coaches of Germany and Poland decided to take some risk and requested to lower the start gate for Markus Eisenbichler and Dawid Kubacki by two positions each. Both did not reach the required distance and therefore did not receive any compensation points. Otherwise Poland and Germany would have been in the game until the last jump.
Two years ago, the German team successfully defended the title won in Oberstdorf. For the first time since Lahti 2017 the Germans missed the podium.
Surprisingly, Switzerland finished sixth ahead of Japan, led by Ryoyu Kobayashi, the runner-up in Friday's individual competition. The USA also achieved a great result with eighth place.
Finland, Romania and Kazakhstan did not make it to the final round.
