Slovenia's ski jumping star makes history in Planica

Slovenia's ski jumping champion Nika Prevc won the inaugural women's event on the Planica ski-flying hill after improving her own world record during the official training session on the iconic hill.

At the season's finale she also picked up her third straight Crystal Globe for the overall World Cup winner, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

Holding her nerve through hours of waiting for the official training to go ahead during extremely windy conditions, the 21-year-old set a new world record at 242.5 metres. She improved her own world record of 236 metres from a training session in Vikersund last year.

This means that Planica now holds both the women's and the men's world records. Nika's brother Domen Prevc set the men's at 254.5 metres at the same venue a year ago.

"I've never enjoyed anything as much as I'm enjoying this moment right now," Nika Prevc said, thrilled about her feat. "The first training jump felt very special, and I don't have words to describe the second one. It's a great day."

Victory of all victories

Prevc then went on to soar to her 40th career World Cup victory in the first women's inaugural competition on a hill that inspires awe. Only the top 15 in the overall World Cup rankings were allowed to compete but only 13 in fact did.

She jumped 228.5 and 221 metres to collect 405.3 points, beating by 17.2 points Norway's Eirin Kvandal, who picked up the small globe for topping the season's ski flying ranking. Third place went to Japan's Nozomi Maruyama.

"This is definitely the victory of all victories. My first win in Planica, unbelievable, and yesterday my first record in Planica," Prevc said after notching up her 18th win and 28th podium finish this season in front of 30,000 spectators.

"The fans really get your heart racing and give you extra energy, so I thank them for coming to watch us girls as well," she said about the fan atmosphere that Planica is famous for.

She is proud and happy to have won her third Crystal Globe and seeing in "another wonderful season" during which she also won three Olympic medals. But she said the "happiest moment" was her setting the new world record.

Her teammate, Nika Vodan finished in ninth place for the final 10th spot in the season's World Cup rankings.

Siblings make history

Before the women's event, men competed in the only classic team event of the season. Both were sold out so the organizers had to ask fans not to keep coming.

Like last year, victory went to Austria. Japan were second and Norway third.

Slovenia's Rok Oblak, Timi Zajc, Anže Lanišek and Domen Prevc finished fifth.

Prevc, who won the first of the two men's individual events in Planica and will accept his first Crystal Globe after the very last event of the season on Sunday, said he was obviously pushing too hard. "Plus, there's too much desire - in a team competition, your heart rate goes up even more than usual," he added.

Nevertheless, the Prevc siblings will go down in history for dominating the season both among men and women.

Photo: Anže Malovrh/STA