ALMATY – Today, 1 February, the ski jumping competition started at the 28th Winter Universiade in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Sunkar Ski Jumping venue is in the middle of the city while ski jumping is a quite popular sport in Almaty. No surprise that a full capacity crowd turned up the watch the competitions. The competition kicked off with the women’s individual on the K95. Since women’s ski jumping appeared the first time on the Winter Universiade programme in Innsbruck, Austria (2005), the number of participating female ski jumpers is gradually rising. Here in Almaty twelve jumpers from seven countries competed. After two rounds it was obvious the Japanese would dominate the podium. Both gold and silver went to Japanese jumpers Haruka Iwasa and Yuka Kobayashi respectively, while the bronze went to Czech athlete Marta Krepelkova.
“It’s a great feeling,” Krepelkova commented after the medal awarding ceremony. “It’s also the first medal for the Czech Republic here at the Winter Universiade and my first medal in an international competition, so its double sweet.”
After the women, the men’s competition started which also saw a Japanese jumper on the podium. Naoki Nakamura grabbed the gold leaving the silver and bronze to Mikhail Maksimochkin (RUS) and Thomas Lackner (AUT) respectively.
C. Pierre, FISU Press Officer
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