Ljubno's new ski-jumping tournament to expand to Austria

Ljubno ob Savinji, 2 January - Slovenia's Ljubno ob Savinji is to be joined by Austria's Villach to organise the New Year's series for women ski jumpers in the 2022/23 season, after the Slovenian venue hosted the newly-formed New Year's series for women modelled on a similar series for men on 31 December and 1 January.

Ljubno ob Savinji
The 31 December World Cup event for women as part of the new New Year's series, hosted by Slovenia's venue of Ljubno ob Savinji.
Photo: Anže Malovrh/STA
File photo

On this occasion, a delegation from Villach visited the organisers to bring with them "a statement that the Austrian Ski Association has endorsed cooperation with Ljubno in organising the next New Year's tournament", Rajko Pintar, head of the Ljubno organising committee, has told the STA.

He said that "Villach has already been entered into the calendar of the New Year's series in the next season as an organiser".

The meeting was also attended by FIS race director for ladies' ski jumping Chika Yoshida and her assistant Miran Tepeš, who Pintar said had endorsed and welcomed the idea and plans for the tournament.

No agreements have been signed yet, but Pintar said that "we all count on long-term cooperation" on the new competition format.

Villach organising committee head Gerhard Prasser said that some other venues could be added to the "tournament of short distances" in the future, such as Italy's Tarvisio.

It is important for them "to give women a new competition format" rather then being just an addition to the men's series, "so in the coming weeks we will continue the talks and activities very intensively", he said.

Both Pintar and Prasser agreed that the new tournament was a logical next step in the development of women's ski jumping.

Ljubno, a vanue in the north of the country, also plans to further improve infrastructure to take the events there to a higher level.

Pintar is very happy with this year's first New Year's series, saying director Yoshida had praised it as by far the biggest progress in women's ski-jumping events.

Saturday's World Cup event was won by Japan's Sara Takanashi and Friday's by Slovenia's Nika Križnar.

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© STA, 2022