Outstanding performance by the Slovenian ski flyers in Planica
Mar 25, 2022·Ski Jumping
Four ski jumpers of Slovenia came on the top 4 places in today's Ski Flying World Cup in Planica, Domen Prevc finished seventh. 15 000 fans at the HS 240 Letalnica-hill celebrated their heroes enthusiastically. Ziga Jelar claimed his maiden World Cup win this afternoon.
"It was really an amazing day for me and also for Slovenia, with four guys in the Top 4. It's amazing that I was able to win here after so many struggles. I'm absolutely overwhelmed", said Ziga Jelar, who was already second and fourth in the Ski Flying World Cups in Oberstdorf last weekend and now leads the Ski Flying World Cup with 230 points, followed by his teammate Timi Zajc (210 points) and Austria's Stefan Kraft (200 points/sixth today).
After the outstanding performance today, Slovenia is also the clear favorite for Saturday's team competition, they can only defeat themselves.
Halvor Egner Granerud was the best Norwegian in ninth, Kamil Stoch was the best Polish jump in eleventh, followed by Karl Geiger in 12th. Geiger now has only a theoretical chance to win the overall World Cup title after Kobayashi had a clearly better result today in fifth. Kobayashi scored 23 points more than Geiger today and now has a lead of 89 points. Normally, Geiger can't win the overall World Cup anymore, but it's not over until after the individual competition on Sunday. With a win, Geiger might still have a chance to claim the crystal globe if Kobayashi is not better than tenth.
It was an emotional day in the "valley of the hills" in Slovenia, not only because of the result. Local hero Anze Semenic showed an amazing jump of 249.5 m in the trial round and then announced his retirement. After his jump in the second round, his teammates carried him through in the outrun and he was celebrated by the fans. It was a great end of the career for Semenic, who won one World Cup event (Zakopane).
Slovenia also made a huge step in the Nations Cup with the performance today. They still have a chance to claim the title with a victory in the team competition and a similar individual result on Sunday, even though they were fourth before Planica. It remains exciting.
The second competition in Planica, the team event, starts already at 9:45 am CET tomorrow.
