Austria’s Stefan Kraft completes ski jump golden double at worlds

LAHTI, Finland – Austria’s Stefan Kraft completed a golden double in ski jumping at the Nordic world ski championships on Thursday, adding the large hill title to the normal hill honor he won last week.

Kraft is the first man to win both individual events at a world championships since Poland’s Adam Malysz in 2003.

Kraft had a slim lead over German rival Andreas Wellinger after the first round, and superior scores from the judges helped him hold on to win by 279.3 points to 278 even though his second jump was slightly shorter than Wellinger’s.

Already assured of going to the Pyeongchang Olympics as at least a reigning double world champion, Kraft is still due to compete in the men’s team large hill event on Saturday. Kraft also has a silver medal from the mixed team event last Sunday.

Third place on the large hill went to Polish jumper Piotr Zyla, who was only sixth after the first round but produced the biggest jump of the competition at 131 meters to grab the bronze medal.

Meanwhile, no one can stop Norway in women’s cross-country skiing.

The Norwegians won the women’s 4x5-kilometer relay, the fifth Norwegian gold from five women’s cross-country events.

Norway was tied with Finland at the halfway point, but Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen opened up a lead of 56 seconds on the third leg. Sweden took silver, and Finland the bronze.

If a Norwegian wins Saturday’s 30-kilometer freestyle race, it would make the team the first to win all women’s cross-country events at a single Nordic worlds since Russia did it 20 years ago. However, there were only five women’s events to win then, rather than the current six.

“It is possible, so we can go for a spot in the history books,” Norway coach Vidar Lofshus told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

The relay also marked a record 17th career world championship for Norwegian veteran Marit Bjoergen, who raced the final leg. Bjoergen has three gold medals at these worlds, along with teammate Maiken Caspersen Falla and a Nordic combined skier from Germany, Johannes Rydzek.