Success in Lillehammer

ÖSV eagles outstanding! Triple victory at the start

Daniel Tschofenig wins the opening competition in Lillehammer!(Bild: EPA/Geir Olsen)

Red-white-red jubilation in Lillehammer! Daniel Tschofenig has won the first individual competition of the new men's ski jumping season on the large hill. The ÖSV eagle came out on top on Saturday ahead of his teammates Jan Hörl and Stefan Kraft.

Austria's ski jumpers are seamlessly building on the successes of the previous season. In a close opening competition, it was the overall World Cup winner of the previous season who secured victory in Lillehammer.

Here is the final score:

At half-time, team-mate Kraft was still in the lead, but in the end he was narrowly beaten by Tschoffenig and also Hörl. Half-time runner-up Domen Prevc from Slovenia finished in fourth place. 

Kraft missed Nykänen's mark in the downwind final
"I would have gambled away so much money today. I didn't expect to win at all, so it's even cooler that it happened," said Tschofenig, who unpacked his best jumps (133/129 m) in the competition after difficulties in training. "When the tension is added, I manage to skip the small obstacles and just go for it," said the Carinthian on ORF after the first round, in which he finished fourth.

Three ÖSV eagles on the podium(Bild: EPA/Geir Olsen)

The day after third place in the mixed team, Kraft (138/120) missed out on being the half-time leader by 5.2 points with his 46th success in the World Cup to draw level with the eternal number two, Matti Nykänen. "It was very difficult. I'm not upset about a podium at the start," said Kraft, who didn't want to complain in view of the plus 37 wind points in the downwind final. "If it's in the corridor, it's in the corridor. It will come back at some point."

Weak Norwegians
Hörl jumped from fifth to second in the extremely tight competition. "According to the result, we'll continue as we left off the season. Megacool, Team Austria is strongly represented again - that makes me very proud," said Hörl and said in the face of a previously nagging Tschofenig: "Hats off, mentally very strong. But there's a score to settle - if he gets down like that every time ..."

The best of the unconvincing host nation was Marius Lindvik in 16th place. He and Johann Andre Forfang were allowed to start again at the World Championships after short bans following the Norwegian suit scandal. The season also got off to a sobering start for Germany's top jumpers. Karl Geiger missed out on the second round, while last year's winner Pius Paschke and Andreas Wellinger had already failed to qualify. Philipp Raimund held up the flag in sixth place.