Powered by Anže Lanišek, Slovenia edged ski jumping superpower Austria to defend the team title at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Norway's Trondheim on 6 March.

Slovenians have not had a stellar season in the World Cup this year and Lanišek is the only one in the top ten in the overall rankings, but together with Lovro Kos, Domen Prevc and Timi Zajc they proved the naysayers wrong.

The Slovenian team took the lead in the first round, collecting 523 points, 21.5 points ahead of the favoured Austria and almost 40 points on hosts Norway.

In the second round the gap dwindled leading up to the final jump, but Lanišek soared well past the mark set by the Austrian team to clinch the third medal for Slovenia at the championships.

Lanišek, who managed the longest jump today, landing at 138 metres, helped Slovenia collect a total of 1,080.8 points to finish ahead of Austria (1,067.4 points) and Norway, who missed on the silver medal by a mere 2.1 points.

"Who would have thought that after such a start to the season for us, we would finish at the top?" Lanišek said in his first statement after the win, thanking his team mates, coaches and family.

"We wore the world champions' jersey from Planica proudly, tried to do our best, and today we really performed well," he added, a reference to the win on home turf two years ago.

This is the third medal for Slovenia at the championships, following the gold medal by Nika Prevc in the women's individual normal hill event, and the silver medal by the mixed team on the large hill.