Silver for peeing
©AFP
Vorarlberg ski jumper Eva Pinkelnig used the first Austrian chance of a medal at the Nordic World Championships in Planica and won silver on the normal hill.
Only Germany’s Katharina Althaus, who was 2.2 points ahead of her, was better than the World Cup leader early on Thursday evening in front of a shaky crowd. Norway’s Anna Odine Ström came third, just behind Pinkelnig, who gambled away a clear intermediate lead in front of Althaus and Pinkelnig in the final.
For the 34-year-old Pinkelnig (96.5 m/100 m) it is the first World Championships individual medal after she was involved in silver twice in team and mixed team competitions in 2019. The gold coup dreamed of after six victories this season came to nothing in Slovenia because she only managed a perfect jump in the second round. Her hottest World Cup prival Althaus (98.5/97) could not be bent with that. After silver in 2019 and also at the Olympics last year, the German celebrated her first individual gold, her fifth overall.
medal contender
Daniela Iraschko-Stolz (2011 in Oslo) remains Austria’s only world champion. Iraschko-Stolz also took the bronze medal four years ago in Seefeld, the last ÖSV World Championships medal to date. Pinkelnig still has a second chance on the large hill in Planica. In addition, she and her ÖSV teammates are also considered a medal contender in the nations competition and in mixed.
The second best Austrian was Julia Mühlbacher at the start. The 18-year-old impressed with eleventh place in her World Cup debut. The former series winners Chiara Kreuzer (14th) and Sara Marita Kramer (23rd) did not exhaust their potential. Defending champion Ema Klinec from Slovenia also had nothing to do with the medal decision.
