Kraft wins final Planica event and ski-jumping World Cup
Planica, 26 March - Austria's Stefan Kraft won the final ski-jumping event of the season at the ski-flying hill in Slovenia's Planica on Sunday to clinch the title of overall World Cup winner for this year. Slovenia's best at the event that only saw one round due to strong winds was Peter Prevc in 6th place.
Planica
Austria's Stefan Kraft (centre) finishes on the top of the ski flying rankings for this season, Germany's Andreas Wellinger (left) finishes second and Poland's Kamil Stoch (right) third.
Photo: Stanko Gruden/STA
Planica
Austria's Stefan Kraft wins the final ski-jumping event of the season at the ski-flying hill in Slovenia's Planica to clinch the title of overall World Cup winner for this year.
Photo: Stanko Gruden/STA
Planica
Austria's Stefan Kraft wins the final ski-jumping event of the season at the ski-flying hill in Slovenia's Planica to clinch the title of overall World Cup winner for this year.
Photo: Stanko Gruden/STA
Kraft, who had also won Friday's individual event in Planica, had by far the longest jump with 250 metres, which earned him 244.3 points.
Germany's Andreas Wellinger (238.5m, 236.2) finished second, and Japanese veteran Noriaki Kasai third (239m, 223.9).
Poland's Kamil Stoch, who still had a theoretical chance of beating Kraft in the overall standings today, only managed 222.5 metres (216.8 points) and was fifth, but was very happy with the season, also pointing to Poland's victory in the Nations Cup.
This is the first overall World Cup title for 23-year-old Kraft, who won eight events in this season and was also the best athlete on the circuit's ski flying hills. Kraft moreover won both individual competitions at the World Championships.
"An unbelievable day, I managed another incredible flight, although I failed to get back the hill record. I was on top of the podium during the ceremony three times," Kraft commented, also thanking his team.
He succeeds Peter Prevc, who was far away from the results of the specular 2015/16 season this year, but again the best Slovenian today, landing at 229.0 metres. Jurij Tepeš, a ski-flying specialist, followed in eight place, managing 231.5 metres but in better conditions.
Prevc, who had won everything there had been to win last year, was "happy for Kraft today, but also a bit envious, since I know how it feels and what he is experiencing now, when he is listening to the anthem".
"He had another very long flight today and I don't know how far it would have gone if there had been another round," Prevc said in acknowledgement of the Austrian's form.
Prevc, who had won 15th events last year to dominate the season like no other jumper before, finished 9th overall, three places behind his 17-year-old brother Domen Prevc, and was not happy with the season at all.
"Something went wrong...The Olympic season is nearing fast, we will have to be more analytical in our approach. We fell into some kind of routine because we were just better and better every year," he said, while also pointing to constant interviews and obligations after "a season that will be hard to repeat".