Herola / Hirvonen fulfil dream of home victory in Lahti
Feb 09, 2019·Nordic Combined
After an extremely exciting race, local heroes Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen took the win in the Team Sprint competition in Lahti. Hirvonen beat Norway's Jørgen Graabak in a finish line sprint by 0.2 seconds and a crash on the final stretch took Akito Watabe (Team Japan I) and Magnus Krog (Team Norway II) out of the contention for the podium. Profitting was Team Austria I: Mario Seidl was unaffected by the race accident and reaped the rewards by claiming the third place, +3.5 seconds after the winners.
Veteran Willi Denifl and Seidl, who re-joined the World Cup after being sidelined due to illness for two weeks, had a great day on the hill and won the jumping round with great efforts of 126 and 127 metres. A total of 254.4 points had the Austrian duo starting 19 seconds ahead of Akito and Yoshito Watabe. The brothers showed performances of 127 and 122.5 metres and reached a point total of 245. Rank three went to the second Japanese team consisting of Go Yamamoto and Hideaki Nagai. 125.5 and 120.5 metres brought them the second rank with a delay of 27 seconds on the leaders.
A bigger gap separated the first three teams from the pursuers, Team Norway I and II and the local heroes from Finland. Espen Bjørnstad and Jørgen Graaban had one minute and four seconds to make up, Espen Andersen and Magnus Krog started at +1:23 and the Finnish local heroes followed one second later at +1:24.
The cross-country race could be divided in two parts: the Finnish - Norwegian catch up race and the six-team fight for the victory.
Even though both Japanese teams and Willi Denifl and Mario Seidl worked together well at the head of the field, the fast skiers in Team Finland I and and Norway I and II could not be stopped. Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen did the main work to close the gap to the top three teams from round to round and when the first group went out on their last lap, the pursuers were breathing down the necks of Willi Denifl, Yoshito Watabe and Hideaki Nagai. Espen Andersen set a superb pace on the last uphill and around the hairpin turn down in the stadium and managed to get teammate Magnus Krog out onto the last lap in first position.
However, on the last lap, all six teams were still close together and only Team Japan II had to let go of the other five teams in the course of the lap. With Eero Hirvonen, Jørgen Graabak, Mario Seidl, Akito Watabe and Magnus Krog fighting for the victory, the end of the race turned into a true thriller.
Hirvonen selected the middle lane, while Graabak and Watabe chose the right lane, with Krog to the left of Watabe. In the thick of the sprint, Watabe’s pole went between Krog’s skis, causing the Norwegian’s ski go go out and tumble the Japanese. Krog fell as well and ski it was Mario Seidl, who was actually quite a few metres behind the four athletes sprinting for the podium, who profited of a suddenly clear way in the middle lane.
The Japanese team I was later disqualified by the jury according to the ICR article regulating overtaking and obstruction of competitors (525.2.16 2). Therefore, Team Japan II finished fifth, Austria II was sixth, Italy I seven, Finland II eight, France I nine and France II ten.
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