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

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.