Austria battles to Junior Worlds gold
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
Austria’s Mika Vermeulen skied his team to the gold medal in the anchor leg of the men’s Team HS100/4x5k at the USANA FIS Nordic Junior World Championships Thursday. France took the silver medal and the Czech Republic the bronze medal.
Japan soared to the lead in the morning jumping, followed closely by Germany. However, Germany’s Maximilian Pfordte fell after landing a jump of 93.5m and suffered knee injury. Pfordte did compete in the 5k in obvious pain, but unfortunately, much like Japan, he wasn’t able to hold off the faster skiers from Austria, France and the Czech Republic.
In the 5k, Austria, France and Czech Republic stayed together throughout much of the race. Heading into the final leg, Austria and France held a small gap over the Czech Republic. But on the final leg, Vermeulen, who had already taken the silver medal in the 10k individual two days earlier, skated away from France’s Mael Tyrode to seal the win.
Lukas Danek from Czech Republic caught Tyrode and the two battled to the finish, with Tyrode slipping ahead in the final kilometer take the silver medal for France.
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