COC-M: Runggaldier wins first event in Nizhny Tagil

Lukas Runggaldier took the victory of the first of three individual events at the COC Finals in Nizhny Tahil. The Italian finished 0.7 seconds ahead of Japan’s Aguri Shimizu in tight sprint for the finish line. Terence Weber from Germany claimed rank three, +2.9 seconds behind the winner.

Local hero Ernest Yahin had won the jumping round with a jump of 99.5 metres. 123.1 points put him 10 seconds in the lead of Terence Weber, who had landed at 98 metres (120.7 p.). France’s Laurent Muhlethaler showed 93.5 metres (114.2 p.), which put him on the third place in the intermediate result list and gave him 36 seconds of time to make up on the leader.

COC leader Thomas Jöbstl had a weaker jump and started the race from position 25 with a delay of one minute and 38 seconds. Lukas Runggaldier had a good jump for his jumping level. 86.5 metres meant a delay of one minute and 19 seconds at the start, a very doable feat for the fast Italian.

By the halfway point of the race, Runggaldier was heading a pursuing group while Terence Weber had taken the lead from Ernest Yahin quite quickly. Laurent Muhlethaler and Aguiri Shimizu had closed their gaps on Yahin at the 5 km mark and kept pushing in the direction of the leader but were being chased by Runggaldier and a group of eight athletes in turn.

In the end, Weber and Shimizu managed to stay on Runggaldier but did not have enough in the tank to beat him in a finish line sprint. With ranks two and three for the Japanese and the German, Laurent Muhlethaler had to be content with rank four, finishing 8.3 seconds after Runggaldier. Paul Gerstgraser was fifth, Lars Buraas sixth, Hugo Buffard seventh, Hidefumi Denda eighth, Ryota Yamamoto ninth and Leif Torbjørn Næsvold completed the Top Ten.

COC leader Jöbstl finished on position thirteen and now leads with 455 points.