Japan's Olympic ski jumping gold medalist Ryoyu Kobayashi finished runner-up Friday as Slovenia's Timi Zajc was crowned men's large hill world champion in front of his home crowd in Planica.
In winning silver, the 26-year-old Kobayashi became the first Japanese man to collect an individual ski jumping medal at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships since Noriaki Kasai finished third in both the normal and large hill competitions in 2003.
Poland's Dawid Kubacki rounded out the podium in Planica, but the day belonged to Zajc, who secured the host nation's first gold at this year's world championships.
Kobayashi led after the opening round of the final with a jump of 135.0 meters that netted him 144.0 points. His second jump scored only a ninth-best 132.8, however, leaving him 10.7 behind Zajc and just 0.6 clear of Kubacki in the final tally.
The Iwate Prefecture native, who won normal hill gold and large hill silver at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, was happy to reach the world championship podium for the first time in individual competition.
"It's been a long time since I've felt so nervous. It was nice to finally get a world championship medal," said Kobayashi, a large hill team bronze medalist at the 2019 worlds. "My jump wasn't so bad either."
Among the other Japanese jumpers, Naoki Nakamura was 29th, Ren Nikaido 32nd and Ryoyu's older brother, Junshiro Kobayashi, was 34th.
