Sara Takanashi celebrated her 63rd World Cup win on Norwegian soil as she was the best in Sunday’s competition in Oslo. With a fourth place, the Slovene Nika Kriznar confirmed Raw Air triumph.
It was a very close rivalry between Japanese and Slovenian athletes at the famous Holmenkollbakken. They took the first four places in Sunday’s Raw Air final. Takanashi was in the lead already after her first jump on 130 meters. In the final round, she landed on 128 meters which were long enough to defeat Ursa Bogota by 4.6 points. The Olympic Champion showed jumps on 127 and 130.5 meters.
Takanashi was the best in three of five recent competitions in which she took part. On Sunday, the 25-year-old athlete won for the record 63rd time in World Cup.
In another Japanese-Slovenian duel, Yuki Ito finished ahead Nika Kriznar. The gap was even smaller as Ito scored only 1.4 points more than the World Cup Overall winner from the previous season.
Kriznar had quite a clear task for the competition as she attempted to defend the Raw Air leader’s position. Her advantage before the race started was impressive. She had collected almost 50 points more than her teammate Ursa Bogataj. The 21-year-old finished in fourth just 10.7 points behind Takanashi and joined Maren Lundby on the list of Raw Air winners. It was the third edition and Lundby won the two previous.
Apart from Japanese and Slovenian jumpers, also the Austrians showed a consistent performance. Three of them finished in the Top 10. The World Cup leader Marita Kramer finished in fifth. She has an advantage of 195 points over Kriznar with two remaining World Cup events in Oberhof.
