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NIZHNY TAGIL, Russia (AP) — Severin Freund of Germany won a shortened ski jump World Cup event on Sunday after the second round was canceled due to unsafe wind conditions.
Freund's jump of 131.5 meters in the first round of the night event gave him the win over Norway's Anders Fannemel, and the first individual World Cup victory by a German jumper this season.
Freund's style points gave him a winning score of 145.7 points even though Fannemel leapt further with 135 meters for 143.3 points.
Third place went to Austria's Stefan Kraft, who jumped a hill-record 138 meters and scored 141.1, 0.2 points better than compatriot Gregor Schlierenzauer in fourth.
Strong gusts of wind posed problems throughout Sunday on Nizhny Tagil's HS134 hill in the Ural mountains, forcing qualification to be abandoned and contributing to several difficult landings in the competition, although no athletes were seriously hurt.
Fannemel, who won the first of the weekend's two World Cup events on Saturday, remains the overall World Cup leader on 430 points, with Freund moving into second place on 361, and Slovenia's Peter Prevc third on 323.
Several top jumpers skipped the Nizhny Tagil weekend, including Czech Roman Koudelka, who had led the World Cup standings going into Saturday's event, and four-time Olympic champion Simon Ammann of Switzerland.
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