Statistics: Estonian winter sports has already exceeded last year's results
While there have been more succesful seasons in Estonian winter sports history, Estonian athletes have already gained more points this year than they did for the entire season last year, ERR's sports portal reports.
Of the Estonians' total 150 points collected over this season's World Cup events, 120 have been won by Tuuli Tomingas, whose best performance so far has been seventh place to start the season. Johanna Talihärm and Rene Zahkna have also collected points for this year's World Cup.
One man has all of Estonia's points this year when it comes to Nordic combined events, a mixture of cross-country skiing and ski jumping. Kristjan Ilves has collected 111 points for the season so far, finishing fifth in two rounds and collecting points on six of the eight events.
Freestyle skier Kelly Sildaru, Estonia's most succesful winter sports athlete, did not participate in the World Cup series last year, but has collected 96 points over two competitions this year. Her recent results are a third-place finish in Big Air competition in early-January and a seventh-place finish in November after winning the qualification round, but injuring herself for the finals.
Artti Aigro is Estonia's lone representative when it comes to World Cup points for ski jumping, having collected 34 points over five top-30 finishes this year. Aigro's best results are a 14th-place finish in Ruka and a 24th-place finish in Titisee-Neustadt.
The final discipline of ERR's sports portal's countdown is cross-country skiing. While the sport has brought Estonia more points than ski jumping, it is placed last as of a rule change this season, which gives skiers bonus points for relay races. As of the old system, Estonia would only have eight points with Marko Kilp and Martin Himma both coming in 27th in World Cup competition. Extra points were added by a 12th-place finish in a relay sprint earlier, giving points to every Estonian skier participating.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste