Nowak and Rießle on top at German nationals

The first-ever female German national champion is called Jenny Nowak and Fabian Rießle claimed the individual title and also defended his Team Sprint title together with Manuel Faißt.

Svenja Würth proved her ski jumping prowess by taking the intermediate lead with 97 metres on Oberstdorf’s HS 106 normal hill on Saturday. Nowak showed 92.5 metres and started the pursuit for the title with a disadvantage of 20 seconds at the start line. Sophia Maurus was third with a jump of 95 metres, +1:33 after Würth but was closely followed by  Maria Gerboth who started seven second after her. Fast skier Emilia Görlich had 83.5 metres to show for and also contended with a time behind of one minute and 40 seconds.

Reigning FIS Junior World Champion Nowak showed what she is made of with a great roller ski race, which saw her set the fastest time of all participants: She finished the 5 km in 15:02.1 and was over two minutes faster than ski jumping leader Würth on the track. Görlich showed a strong race as well. A racing time of 15:10.4 catapulted her past teammates Maurus, Gerboth and Würth to claim the final second place, +1:28.3 behind Nowak. Svenja Würth clung to the podium and finished third, +1:52.4 behind Nowak.

New dad Fabian Rießle was the top athlete in the men’s events: he took the individual title and the title in the Team Sprint together with Manuel Faißt.

In the individual, he jumped to the lead with strong 135 metres on Oberstdorf’s HS 137 large hill and claimed a decisive 31-second head start on Manuel Faißt, who showed 131 metres. Terence Weber was third after the jumping part with 130.5 metres and started 41 seconds behind Rießle.

In the race, Rießle only needed the third-fastest time to cross the finish line as the winner. Local hero Vinzenz Geiger shot to the front from rank 11 after ski jumping with the fastest racing time of 22:06.0 and claimed the second position, +26.2 behind Rießle. Fellow fast skier Jakob Lange improved from position seven to three and claimed bronze, +41.2 after the winner. Manuel Faißt, Terence Weber and Simon Hüttel were fourth, fifth and sixth, while big names Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek had to be satisfied with positions eight and 16 respectively.

In the Team Sprint, the duo from Baden-Württemberg (Rießle and Faißt) fought with the Saxonian duo of Eric Frenzel and Terence Weber. Frenzel/Weber had the lead after the ski jumping part of the event but, once more, the faster skiers prevailed. In the end Rießle/Faißt defended their title by 3.2 seconds. The Bavarian team of Jakob Lange and Vinzenz Geiger claimed the third place but only finished one minute and 17 seconds behind the winners