Slovenia clinch first medal at Planica Nordic worlds
Slovenia's ski jumpers won bronze in the mixed-team event at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica on 26 January to secure the first medal for the host country at the competition.
Ema Klinec, Nika Križnar, Timi Zajc and Anže Lanišek scored a total of 1000.4 points, 16.8 points fewer than the gold winners Germany and 4.1 points short of Norway's in second.
Križnar jumped 101 metres in both series and Zajc landed at 103 metres in a fine telemark style in the final after jumping 96.6 metres in the first series. Lanišek jumped 100 metres in the first and then went on to pull off a great 98-metre jump with a telemark finish in very poor conditions.
Klinec did not do so well, chalking up 88 and 91 metres. She had quite a few problems touching down in the second series.
"I did my job properly. The jumps were top-notch. We proved where we really belong. We wanted this medal, it wasn't easy, but that makes us all the more happy," Lanišek told public broadcaster RTV Slovenija about the feat.
Križnar could not stop smiling: "We have the first mixed-team medal at the worlds. The team really was like one. Too bad about Eva's last jump, it looked really terrible. But luckily she stayed on her skis. I'm happy, we have a medal, now we just have to keep going," she said.
Slovenia won gold in the mixed team event at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, but this is the first medal for the country at the world championships in the discipline. In all Slovenia has won 16 medals at Nordic worlds so far, 11 of which in ski jumping.
Slovenia hope to win some more with three more ski jumping events coming up at the current championships, all of them on the large hill.