Podium No. 89!

Stefan Kraft is now the sole third-place finisher in the eternal best list of podium finishes in ski jumping after taking 3rd place on Sunday at the Ski Flying Days at Kulm.

The flying days at Kulm near Bad Mitterndorf in Styria brought top results and a lot of spectacle for the local audience. Thereby the “dream weekend” for Stefan Kraft started with bitter news for the JumpandReach family. After several ski jumpers fell ill in the entire ÖSV team, Michael Hayböck also caught it so badly before the weekend that he had to skip the first ski flying weekend of the season.

Although Stefan was also quite ailing and could not train in the last few days, he was insanely looking forward to the big hill and proved his flying skills by winning the first qualification on Friday. The competition on Saturday was characterized by snowfall and great distances. Stefan managed super flights and finished 2nd behind Halvor Egner Granerud and ahead of Domen Prevc, drawing level with Gregor Schlierenzauer with 88 podium finishes in the World Cup.

After a small victory presentation in the center of Bad Mitterndorf, Stefan regenerated his “legs like concrete” overnight and showed on Sunday with the victory in the qualification that he was also to be reckoned with today. The flying was again won by the Norwegian Granerud ahead of the Slovenian Timi Zajc, the Austrian was third. With podium number 89(!) World Champion Stefan Kraft as the best Austrian now ranks alone behind Janne Ahonen and Adam Malysz on place 3 of the best list.

For Michael Hayböck, who is healthy again, and Stefan Kraft the World Cup program continues at full speed. Next weekend there will be two competitions in Willingen and from there they will go directly to Lake Placid in the USA. There, by the way, Michael managed two victories at his last appearance in the Continental Cup. Afterwards, all forces will be bundled once again, because it is not long until the World Championships in Planica at the end of February …