Ski jumper Katharina Althaus also flew to the podium at the start of the Olympic dress rehearsal in Ljubno. In Slovenia, the 21-year-old finished second on Saturday behind the once again superior Norwegian Maren Lundby, finishing in the top three for the seventh time at her seventh season’s competition.
Lundby took the lead in both rounds (88.5 and 91.0 m) with 256.0 points clearly ahead of Althaus (241.5/84.5+88.0) and the Japanese Sara Takanashi (236.5) and extended her lead in the overall World Cup with her seventh victory of the season. With 860 points, it is now 280 points ahead of twice season winner Althaus.
Olympic champion Carina Vogt (Degenfeld), who, like Althaus, had not competed in the show jumping competitions at Zao in Japan, finished fifth in Ljubno (229.0). The Olympic runner-up Daniela Iraschko-Stolz (Austria), who returned to the World Cup after almost a year of abstinence due to a knee injury, finished fourth (235.7).
The two other German Olympic drivers Juliana Seyfarth (Ruhla) and Ramona Straub (Langenordach) finished tenth and 20th.
Althaus had celebrated her first career victory in Ljubno last year, when she won in a historic German triple triumph over Vogt and Svenja Würth, who is currently pausing due to a torn cruciate ligament.
On Sunday (14.00 hrs) another individual competition will take place in Ljubno. Before the Winter Games in Pyeongchang (9. till 25. February) two more jumps should have taken place next weekend in Hinzenbach/Austria, but due to lack of snow they were cancelled. The search for a substitute host was also unsuccessful.