Freund had stepped up his bid by triumphing in the Finnish city of Kuopio earlier on Tuesday (March 10) and backed up that performance with a win in the Norwegian city of Trondheim in another night session.

The German produced jumps of 135 and 139 metres, earning him 265.3 points, enough to take the seal his seventh victory of the season and allowing him wrestle control of the leader's yellow bib from Austria's Stefan Kraft.

Kraft, who had taken the lead from Slovenia's Peter Prevc in Finland, suffered misfortune in Trondheim, twice being forced to get off his starting bar due to high winds, before seeing part of his binding break when allowed to jump.

While Kraft skilfully prevented himself from falling, the incident cost him hopes of challenging the lead, eventually finishing ninth.

"It's a pity, the jump was very good again and it would probably have been enough to win," the Austrian reflected afterwards.

"Thank God nothing bad happened."

 Austria'sStefan Kraft avoided a crash in the high winds but dropped from first to third in the overall Cup standings, losing the leader's yellow bib in the process ©AFP/Getty Images



Kraft was also overtaken by Prevc in the race for the overall World Cup title as the Slovenian finished runner-up on the night, accumulating 255.1 points from his two efforts.

Local hero Rune Velta, a double gold medallist at last month's FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, rounded off the podium after achieving 247.2 points.

With only four competitions remaining of the season, Freund leads the overall classification on 1443 points, with Prevc trailing the German by just 34 points and Kraft a further 12 back in third.
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The next World Cup event is set to be held in Oslo on Saturday (March 13).

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