STA, 22 March 2019 - The Planica ski flying hill will traditionally host the Ski Jumping World Cup season finale between Friday and Sunday, with the organisers promising a spectacle involving the world elite despite the fact that the overall winner has already been decided.
While Ryoyu Kobayashi of Japan has secured the overall individual win in the 40th World Cup season long ago, the fight for the small crystal globe for ski flying is still open.
Kobayashi in also in the lead in this department, being closely followed by Markus Eisenbichler of Austria and Kamil Stoch of Poland, who won both individual events at Planica last year.
Ski fliers will have two individual events to improve their score, on Friday and Sunday, while Saturday is reserved for the team event, with Poland defending their lead in the Nations Cup ahead of Germany and Japan.
A special trophy called Planica 7 will go to the jumper with the best total from all seven jumps, from the qualifiers on Thursday to Sunday's final event. It comes with a cheque worth 20,000 Swiss francs.
Slovenian jumpers will certainly be motivated to conclude the season in style, coming off two wins in Norway's Vikersund last week, with Domen Prevc earning his fifth individual win after a team win by Slovenia in ski flying.
The two wins have brought some optimism to the otherwise lacklustre season for the Slovenian team under the new head coach Gorazd Bertoncelj, who had set ambitious goals ahead of the season, much of which have remained out of reach.
The organisers expect that some 60,000 spectators will have visited the Planica ski flying hill by Sunday, as the hill is looking to regain an absolute record for the longest jump back from the Vikersund Hill (253.5m).
Planica is only two metres short (251.5m by Kamil Stoch in 2017) of the record and Gregor Schlierenzauer last year landed at the record mark but the jump was disqualified because he touched the ground with both hands.
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