The 29-year-old, who won the men's normal hill and large hill individual titles at Sochi 2014, jumped 226.5 metres on his way to scoring an unrivalled 216.9 points.

Germany’s Andreas Wellinger ranked second with 214.1 points, while Slovenia’s Domen Prevc came third with 207.6.

Today’s flying hill individual prologue marked the eighth stage of the Raw Air Tournament, which consists of 10 events in as many days in Norway.

Wellinger now leads the standings on 1,445.9 points, with Austria's Stefan Kraft second on 1,421.9 and Germany’s Markus Eisenbichler third on 1,406.8.

Stoch is fifth on 1,363.9 points, one place behind Norway’s Andreas Stjernen who has 1,380.7.

"The overall ranking will not be decided until the last jump, even if there's a difference of 30 or 40 points," Wellinger said.

"I have to show solid jumps and then we'll see the result at the end."

The final two stages of the Raw Air Tournament are made up of tomorrow’s flying hill team event and the flying hill individual competition on Sunday (March 19).

Qualification had to be postponed various times today due to strong winds, which also meant a replacement competition for that cancelled in Lillehammer on Tuesday (March 14) could not be held.