Stefan Kraft lost his top spot in the Bischofshofen race that ended the mountain week. The Austrians took a triple victory.
Jussi Vainikka,
STT Sports
of Austria Daniel Tschofenig has won the 73rd ski jumping Central European Hill Week. He also won the final race in Bischofshofen, Austria, with jumps of 136 and 140.5 meters.
There was drama in the final race, when the record tight overall race before the last race and its second round was led by Stefan Kraft fell in the Austrian members between the winner Tschofenig and the runner-up Jan Hörlin back third. With his second jump, Kraft fell to 137.5 meters, while the victory in the classic tour would have required a slice of at least 140 meters.
The wind conditions became difficult just before Kraft’s jump turn.
– This is simply incredible. I’m really sorry for Stefan, Tschofenig lamented Kraft’s fate, according to news agency NTB.
Austria took its third triple victory in the history of the mountain week in the overall competition of four races. Hörl was behind Tschofenig by 1.4 and Kraft by 4.1 points.
Niko Kytösaho jumped 101.5 meters and qualified from the second round. The Finn was last in the race.
Kytösaho was 37th as the best Finn in the Mäkiwiiko overall race. Antti Aalto was the 51st and Kasperi Valto 61:s. Only Kytösaho reached the second round of the Finns in one competition, when he was 25th in the third race in Innsbruck.
– After the Christmas break, we tried to figure out our technical problems, but we couldn’t solve them. A one-week competition break is now in place for us, Finland’s Slovenian head coach Igor Medved said on the audio recording of the Ski Association.
Finland has celebrated the victory of the hill week overall race 16 times, but in the 2020s the days of success are a distant memory: in the last five hill weeks, only Aalto has survived in all four races of the tour to the second round, at the turn of the year 2020–21.
In the following hill week 2021-22, no Finn jumped to the second round. It is the Finnish bottom quotation of this decade on a traditional hill tour, but there is no cause for rejoicing even three years later.
Mäkivik final results
1) Daniel Tschofenig AUT 1194.4 points
2) Jan Hörl AUT –1.4
3) Stefan Kraft AUT –4.1
4) Johann Andre Forfang NOR –40.2
5) Gregor Deschwande’s SUI –42.5
6) Pius Paschke GER –60.4
37) Niko Kytösaho FIN –643.8
51) Antti Aalto FIN –964.1
61) Kasperi Valto FIN –1,087.4