One Sara puts pressure on the other

Sara Marita Kramer sails in a league of her own in the women’s ski jumping World Cup. The 19-year-old from Salzburg celebrated her third win in a row yesterday at the season finale in Tchaikovsky and shortened her deficit to the overall leader Sara Takanashi (Jpn) before the final competition on Sunday (8 a.m., ORF Sport +) to 66 points. Triumphs at Kramer Showdown, then she gets the big crystal ball when Takanashi is a maximum of fourth and Nika Kriznar (Slo) is a maximum of fifth. The chance is not great, but it is alive.

“My flight system is right. I pulled it off with a lot of self-confidence,” said Kramer, who outpaced Takanashi, who placed second yesterday with two maximum distances (99.5 and 100 meters) by 23.3 points.

The victory in the Russia series “Blue Bird Tour”, which is associated with a bonus of 10,000 Swiss francs, should hardly be taken by Kramer, given a lead of 44.4 points over Takanashi. Today (1 p.m., ORF Sport +) the focus is on that Team competition, the struggle for the Nations Cup promises a heartbeat finale. Yesterday the red-white-red women took the lead with four places in the top 15 – Daniela Iraschko-Stolz was seventh, Sophie Sorschag eleventh, Chiara Hölzl 15th – ahead of Slovenia. The difference is only 27 points. Today’s winning team collects 400.

The men in Planica also have to complete an intensive program. Yesterday the wind turned out to be (half) a spoilsport, the second ski flying had to be decided in just one round. World champion Karl Geiger (D) triumphed with one “set” on 232 meters ahead of the previous day’s winner Ryoyu Kobayashi (Jpn) and Bor Pavlovic (Slo). The ÖSV “eagles” landed in the defeated field. Daniel Huber was ninth, Michael Hayböck did not get past 14th, Markus Schiffner was 24th and Stefan Kraft only 29th. Today (10 a.m., ORF 1) if the cards are reshuffled, the last one rises Team competition this season, to wrap up there on Sunday (10 a.m., ORF 1) the third Individual competition.

Halvor Egner Granerud (Nor) has long been the winner of the large crystal ball.