Olympic worry as Takanashi suffers second defeat

Japanese ski jump star Sara Takanashi suffered a second successive World Cup defeat on Sunday delivering a worrying dent to her status as Olympic Games gold medal favourite. The 17-year-old was beaten into second place by Austria's Daniela Iraschko-Stolz on the Planica hill in Slovenia, just as she had been 24 hours earlier. The back-to-back defeats came in the penultimate World Cup meet before the Sochi Olympics get underway on February 7. Iraschko-Stolz, the 30-year-old 2011 world champion, pulled off the longest jump of the competition of 102.5m to edge out Takanashi by three points with Germany's Carina Voigt claiming third, just as she had on Saturday. Takanashi still leads the overall World Cup standings having now broken through the 1000-point barrier. Next weekend, the World Cup circuit switches to Hinzenbach in Austria for the final two rounds before the Olympics where women's ski jumping is making its debut. Results: 1. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz (AUT) 249.8 pts (102.5 - 101.5 m), 2. Sara Takanashi (JPN) 246.8 (101.5 - 98.5 m), 3. Carina Vogt (GER) 241.3 (100.0 - 99.0 m), 4. Yuki Ito (JPN) 233.7 (96.5 - 97.0 m), 5. Maja Vtic (SLO) 233.3 (98.5 - 96.5 m) World Cup standings (after 11 of 19 rounds): 1. Sara Takanashi (JPN) 1020 pts, 2. Carina Vogt (GER) 666, 3. Daniela Iraschko-Stolz (AUT) 522, 4. Irina Avvakumova (RUS) 493, 5. Yuki Ito (JPN) 354 Source: AFP