Cav's Place

For fans of ski jumping who also happen to keep track of records and milestones, this early competition that took place today in Planica, making up for last week’s canceled second competition in Titisee-Neustadt, made for quite a morning. There was no new ski flying record, nor a new hill record, those remaining at 251.5 and 248.5 meters, respectively, the day’s longest jump being Robert Kranjec’s 241.5 meters, but Noriaki Kasai took part in the 500th World Cup competition of his career, reaching a major milestone as he continues to extend this record, while Peter Prevc won for the 14th time this season and accumulated 2123 points, both of which being new records.

Kasai sure was made to wait for this moment, which was first supposed to take place last Saturday, before the second competition in Wisla was canceled a week before that and wasn’t replaced, therefore making that first Titisee-Neustadt competition his 499th instead. Then the wind forced organizers to cancel the next day’s event, postponing the 500th yet again until today, when this additional competition was carried out, in the morning and without a qualifying round before it, so a staggering 65 jumpers were listed to start even though ski flying competitions normally include 40 in the first round.
Back to Kasai, he continues to amaze, not only by continuing to compete at the age of 43, after having first appeared in the World Cup back in December 1988, but even more so by the level he maintains. He’s not merely competing, but he continues to be one of the best, currently being ranked eighth overall and seventh in the ski flying classification this season. His most recent podium finish was actually earlier this month, in Wisla, when he finished third, while his latest win was at the start of the previous season, in November 2014, in Ruka. And today he finished sixth, with two jumps of 225 meters each, so landing right on the line marking the hill size.

As for Prevc, the two records set today, which he may well continue to add to in the two individual competitions left until the end of the season, serve not only to emphasize how dominant he was this season, but also may in some way help make up for the way he lost the previous one, when he finished with the same number of points as Severin Freund but ended up second due to the lower number of victories.