COCM: Rehrl upholds Austrian honour in Klingenthal
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
Franz-Josef Rehrl’s performance at the second of three Continental Cup events in Klingenthal may well be the light of the tunnel for the Austrian team. Up until now, many athletes had struggled but with a time advantage of 26.5 seconds, Rehrl was the clear winner of a big field of 62 athletes today.
Second was fellow World Cup athlete Maxime Laheurte while Poland’s Pawel Slowiok impressed with a third rank, his best Continental Cup result ever. He finished +0:42.4 seconds behind Rehrl.
Rehrl laid the foundation for his victory with an outstanding jump in the Vogtlandarena. 138 metres were the longest jump of the day and gave Rehrl a head start of 21 seconds on Norwegian Harald Riiber. Young gun Simen Kvarstad ranked third with 135.5 metres and a starting time 32 seconds behind Rehrl. Estonia’s Kristjan Ilves was fourth, a position he would keep in the final ranking as well.
Laurent Muhlethaler finished fifth, Sinde Ure Søtvik sixth and teammate Espen Bjørnstad was eighth. The Japanese team showed a strong team performance with three athletes in the Top Ten: Hidefumi Denda finished seventh, Aguri Shimizu ninth and 16-year-old Kodai Kimura tenth, a career-first Top Ten result in his only second Continental Cup start.
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