Ski Jumping 2018/Women's normal hill

Women's normal hill
General information
Sport	Ski Jumping 2018
Date	12 February 2018
Competitors	35 athletes
Venue	Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre
Previous medalists
Gold	Carina Vogt
Silver	Daniela Iraschko-Stolz
Bronze	Coline Mattel
Conditions
Temperature	-11°C / 12.2°F
Medalists
	Maren Lundby
	Katharina Althaus
	Sara Takanashi

The women's normal hill of Ski Jumping 2018 during the 2018 Winter Olympics was held on 12 February 2018 in the Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre. With 35 athletes competing, the event was won by Maren Lundby from Norway, with Katharina Althaus from Germany taking the silver medal and Sara Takanashi from Japan taking bronze.

Format

The competition exists out of two separate rounds. In the trial round, all competitors performed a jump, scored on distance, balance, style, and some other factors. The thirty ski jumpers with the highest scores advance to the final round, in which all thirty competitors jump again. The athlete with the highest combined score after two rounds is the winner of the event.

Preview

Thirty-five athletes qualified for the event, and it seemed to be a fierce battle between several athletes. Maren Lundby and Sara Takanashi had performed very well in the current World Cups, with Lundby being the current leader of the World Cup standings, and Takanashi being the most successful female ski jumper in the circuit. Carina Vogt had also been a force to be reckoned with in the previous years, winning the inaugural Olympic title in 2014. Other serious medal contenders included Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, the veteran of the competing athletes and reigning silver medalist, Irina Avvakumova, and Yuki Ito. Possible outsiders who could cause an upset would be Katharina Althaus, who was the best performer in the practice runs, and Chiara Hoelzl.

Lucile Morat was the youngest of three athletes born after 1 January 2000, alongside Lara Malsiner and Nika Kriznar. Five other competitors were younger than 20 years old at the time of competition. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz led the charge on the other side of the scale, being over four years older than Anastasiya Barannikova, who had just made her Olympic debut at the age of 30. The only other athlete born in the 1980s was Abby Ringquist, who would also be making her Olympic debut. Fifteen out of thirty-five athletes had competed at the event's first edition four years prior, with Carina Vogt and Iraschko-Stolz being the reigning medalists on the event. Four other women ended up in the top 10 of Sochi: Sara Takanashi, Evelyn Insam, Yuki Ito, and Maren Lundby.

Summary

Round 1

The beginning of the competition was mostly underwhelming, with Sarah Hendrickson and Alexandra Kustova being the only athletes out of the first eight competitors to jump further than 80 metres to get a score higher than 65 points. After these eight, the competition was starting to get into shape, with Anastasiya Barannikova finally beating the score as set by Kustova, and with Julia Kykkanen approaching her score as well shortly after her. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz was the first competitor to breach the 90-metres mark (and the 100-metres mark), scoring almost 30 more points than current leader Barannikova, with the first score of over 100 points. The Germans Ramona Straub and Juliane Seyfarth soon followed with scores above 100 points, which was also reached by Nika Kriznar, who represented Slovenia. In regards to the big medal contenders, who started in the back of the field, the last three athletes reached a score of over 120 points, with Sara Takanashi, Katharina Althaus, and Maren Lundby also reaching 100 metres. Carina Vogt, the defending Olympic champion, was behind with a score of just below 110 points and had a lot to catch up on. Irina Avvakumova (4th place) and Yuki Ito (9th place) finished out the top 10. The athletes scoring fewer than 60 points failed to make the final: Nita Englund, Taylor Henrich, Elena Runggaldier, Evelyn Insam, and home-competing Park Guy-lim.

Round 1 Results
Rank	Nat.	Name	Distance	Points
1		Maren Lundby	105.5	125.4
2		Katharina Althaus	106.5	123.2
3		Sara Takanashi	103.5	120.3
4		Irina Avvakumova	99.0	114.7
5		Daniela Iraschko-Stolz	101.5	113.3
6		Carina Vogt	97.0	108.6
7		Nika Kriznar	101.0	108.5
8		Juliane Seyfarth	102.5	108.3
9		Yuki Ito	94.0	105.1
10		Ramona Straub	98.5	104.4
11		Kaori Iwabuchi	93.5	98.2
12		Ema Klinec	91.5	94.2
13		Jacqueline Seifriedsberger	93.0	93.7
14		Chiara Hoelzl	88.0	92.2
15		Yuka Seto	93.0	90.3
16		Lara Malsiner	88.5	90.2
17		Anastasiya Barannikova	88.0	83.7
18		Silje Opseth	89.5	83.5
19		Lucile Morat	86.5	79.7
20		Manuela Malsiner	86.5	79.6
21		Alexandra Kustova	85.0	77.3
22		Julia Kykkanen	85.0	77.2
23		Sarah Hendrickson	86.0	76.7
24		Sofia Tikhonova	86.5	75.0
25		Ursa Bogataj	84.5	71.2
26		Chang Xinyue	83.0	69.6
27		Daniela Haralambie	80.5	66.5
28		Spela Rogelj	80.0	64.3
29		Lea Lemare	74.5	62.3
30		Abby Ringquist	77.5	62.0
31		Nita Englund	77.0	57.9
32		Taylor Henrich	78.0	56.5
33		Elena Runggaldier	71.5	48.8
34		Evelyn Insam	72.0	46.4
35		Park Guy-lim	56.0	14.2

Final

The second jump for the thirty qualifying athletes would be in ascending order of the scores of the first round, and ever-changing wind conditions caused some moves in the final standings. Abby Ringquist, Lea Lemare, Daniela Haralambie, and Spela Rogelj greatly improved on their score in the first round, the last-named even scoring over 90 points, a 25-point difference with the first attempt. The barrier of 90 points wouldn't be broken again until Silje Opseth, which allowed her to win a few places in the final classification. Chiara Hoelzl took revenge for her somewhat disappointing first attempt, receiving the first score of over 100 points in the final. Ramona Straub exceeded her score by over 5 points, and by taking the provisional lead, securing herself of a top 10 position. Nika Kriznar was the first ski jumper to beat the mark of 110 points, and ensured herself of a seventh place on the final standings at the age of only 17. However, Carina Vogt already beat her score immediately after, with a score of almost 120 points, with only 5 athletes to go. The second consecutive defending medalist Daniela Iraschko-Stolz slightly disappointed with a jump shorter than 100 metres, just finishing outside of the top 5. Sara Takanashi was the first competitor to break the 120-points-mark, improving on her 4th-placed finish of four years prior, jumping to the bronze medal. Katharina Althaus and Maren Lundby were on pretty even grounds after the first jump, but Lundby showed her class with a score of almost 140 points and a jump of 110 metres, as opposed to the second-furthest jump of the day with 106 metres, and a score of just shy of 130 points of Althaus. Irina Avvakumova just missed out on a medal, and Ramona Straub, Yuki Ito, and Juliane Seyfarth finished out the top 10.

Final Results
Rank	Nat.	Name	Distance	Points
1		Maren Lundby	110.0	139.2
2		Katharina Althaus	106.0	129.4
3		Sara Takanashi	103.5	123.5
4		Carina Vogt	101.5	119.3
5		Irina Avvakumova	102.0	116.0
6		Nika Kriznar	104.0	114.7
7		Daniela Iraschko-Stolz	99.0	112.6
8		Ramona Straub	98.5	106.1
9		Chiara Hoelzl	95.5	101.0
10		Yuki Ito	93.0	98.8
11		Silje Opseth	91.5	94.7
12		Spela Rogelj	90.5	90.2
13		Kaori Iwabuchi	89.0	90.1
14		Jacqueline Seifriedsberger	92.0	89.8
15		Lara Malsiner	92.5	89.3
16		Ema Klinec	89.0	87.4
17		Juliane Seyfarth	90.0	86.0
18		Chang Xinyue	84.5	85.3
19		Lea Lemare	93.5	84.5
20		Daniela Haralambie	85.0	84.3
21		Sarah Hendrickson	88.0	83.9
22		Manuela Malsiner	89.0	83.8
23		Abby Ringquist	91.0	82.4
24		Yuka Seto	89.0	81.7
25		Sofia Tikhonova	86.0	75.8
26		Julia Kykkanen	84.0	75.4
27		Lucile Morat	86.5	75.1
28		Alexandra Kustova	85.5	75.0
29		Anastasiya Barannikova	82.0	65.3
30		Ursa Bogataj	81.0	64.0

Results

In only the second edition of the women's event in ski jumping, Maren Lundby took the win, levelling with Finland on the all-time medal standings in terms of gold medals. Katharina Althaus took the silver medal after finishing 23rd in Sochi, while bronze medalist Sara Takanashi barely missed out on a medal in 2014. Irina Avvakumova reached the best result of a Russian ski jumper ever, finishing fourth, with the defending medalists Carina Vogt and Daniela Iraschko-Stolz behind her. Nika Kriznar was the best-performing debutant, finishing seventh.

Result	Athlete	Nationality	Score
	Maren Lundby	Norway	264.6
	Katharina Althaus	Germany	252.6
	Sara Takanashi	Japan	243.8
4	Irina Avvakumova	Olympic Athletes from Russia	230.7
5	Carina Vogt	Germany	227.9
6	Daniela Iraschko-Stolz	Austria	225.9
7	Nika Kriznar	Slovenia	223.2
8	Ramona Straub	Germany	210.5
9	Yuki Ito	Japan	203.9
10	Juliane Seyfarth	Germany	194.3
11	Chiara Hoelzl	Austria	193.2
12	Kaori Iwabuchi	Japan	188.3
13	Jacqueline Seifriedsberger	Austria	183.5
14	Ema Klinec	Slovenia	181.6
15	Lara Malsiner	Italy	179.5
16	Silje Opseth	Norway	178.2
17	Yuka Seto	Japan	172.0
18	Manuela Malsiner	Italy	163.4
19	Sarah Hendrickson	United States	160.6
20	Chang Xinyue	China	154.9
21	Lucile Morat	France	154.8
22	Spela Rogelj	Slovenia	154.5
23	Julia Kykkanen	Finland	152.6
24	Alexandra Kustova	Olympic Athletes from Russia	152.3
25	Sofia Tikhonova	Olympic Athletes from Russia	150.8
25	Daniela Haralambie	Romania	150.8
27	Anastasiya Barannikova	Olympic Athletes from Russia	149.0
28	Lea Lemare	France	146.8
29	Abby Ringquist	United States	144.4
30	Ursa Bogataj	Slovenia	135.2
31	Nita Englund	United States	57.9
32	Taylor Henrich	Canada	56.5
33	Elena Runggaldier	Italy	48.8
34	Evelyn Insam	Italy	46.4
35	Park Guy-lim	South Korea	14.2