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Difficult conditions at the World Cup in Ruka
Challenging wind conditions heavily impacted the World Cup schedule in Ruka over the weekend. Only one of the two planned individual competitions could take place. The victory went to Slovenia’s Anze Lanisek.
Two individual competitions were scheduled for the weekend on the Rukatunturi hill in Ruka, Finland. Strong winds on Friday made it impossible to hold the qualification round as planned, so it was postponed to Saturday and held directly before the competition. Austria’s Daniel Tschofenig secured the qualification win with a jump of 140 metres, ahead of Norway’s Halvor Egner Granerud.
The competition started shortly afterwards. Despite light wind and snowfall, the first round initially proceeded without any major issues. After the opening round, Slovenia’s Anze Lanisek was in the lead. Although the second round got underway as planned, it had to be stopped shortly afterwards. The athletes began to lose speed on the inrun due to the difficult conditions, making a fair and safe continuation impossible. As a result, the final standings were based on the first round: Lanisek claimed the win ahead of Japan’s Ren Nikaido and his teammate Domen Prevc.
On Sunday, the weather remained uncooperative. After the qualification had already been cancelled in the morning, the start time for the competition was pushed back twice before the event was eventually called off. Persistent strong winds made any attempt at a fair competition impossible. The cancelled individual event is now scheduled to be made up at a later date in Lahti.