Austrian Stefan Kraft claims 20th career ski jumping WC win

Bucharest(IANS) Stefan Kraft of Austria has grabbed his fourth ski jumping World Cup win of the season and 20th overall in Rasnov, Romania and extended his lead in the overall ranking table.

In the second World Cup competition in Rasnov on Saturday, 26-year-old Kraft posted jumps of 103 and 97.5 meters in the final for 270.3 points to top the podium. With his 20th World Cup win, Kraft has now drawn level with Austrian ski jumping legend Andreas Goldberge in all time wins, reports Xinhua news agency.

Karl Geiger of Germany, who won the first event on Friday, ranked second with 266.7 points and fellow German Constantin Schmid was third with 260.2 points for his first ever podium finish.

"Before the second jump, I knew that Karl was in the lead and I was a bit nervous and felt the pressure because the two of us are fighting for the overall World Cup lead. I had to risk a lot in order to come in ahead of him and it's amazing that it worked out so well for me today," Kraft said.

Kraft now leads the overall World Cup ranking with 1,433 points, 118 points ahead of Geiger. Dawid Kubacki of Poland moved up to third with 1,067 points following his fourth placed finish on Saturday.

Austria also displayed their dominance in ski jumping in the women's World Cup team competition in Ljubno, Slovenia on Saturday as the Austrian team scored 1,008.7 points, beating the local Slovenian side by 3.6 points to win the title. Norway came third with 960.2 points.