There was a shock winner of the normal hill competition at the FIS Ski Jumping World Championships in Falun as Rune Velta pipped Severin Freund to the gold medal.

Velta, a 25-year-old Norwegian without a World Cup victory in his career, produced two jumps of 95.5m to earn a final tally of 252.7 points.

That put him 0.4 points clear of Freund, with Austria's Stefan Kraft (248.3) taking third place on the podium.

Freund did manage the longest jump of the day, an effort of 96m in round two, but it was not quite enough to deny Velta, who led after round one.

World Cup leader Peter Prevc finished way down the field in 13th with a score of 224.8 points.

"Before today I didn't think that this was possible. But after the trial jump I had a really good feeling and I managed to keep that for the competition," said Velta. "Now I'm world champion!"