OPA: Pagnier, Lehnert and Kostner on top in Chaux-Neuve
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
Three Nordic Combined events - two for boys and one for girls - end the OPA Alpencup series for the season of 2016/17 in Chaux-Neuve and for the first time, male and female overall winners were crowned.
After local heroine Josephine Pagnier won the last ladies’ event of 2016/17 ahead of Swiss Rea Kindlimann and France’s Lea Brocard, the overall victory went to Austria’s Lisa Eder. With two victories and one second place in four events, Eder held 280 points and beat Italians Annika Sieff (211 p.) and Lisa Moreschini (182 p.) to the title.
In the competition, Pagnier had already dominated on her home HS 60 hill. 58 metres gave her a whopping one minute and 28 second-lead on Kindlimann, who jumped 51 metres. Italy’s Arianna Sieff was third with 48.5 metres and had to make up two minutes and two seconds on the 4 km track. But Pagnier held her own and extended her lead to one minute and 43 seconds in the finish. Arianna Sieff was not able to hold Lena Brocard and teammate Annika Sieff off and finished on the fourth place. Emma Treand and Simone Buff completed the results on ranks six and seven.
On the boys’ side, German Luis Lehnert and Italian Aaron Kostner won one event each. On Saturday, Lehnert captured the jumping lead with 112 metres on the HS 118 hill in Chaux-Neuve. He was able to keep all pursuers at bay and finished 24.7 seconds ahead of Kostner, who stormed to the podium from position 23 and was the fasted man on the track. Frenchman Lilian Vaxelaire took the bronze position, +30.5 seconds behind Lehnert.
The final jumping winner of the 2016/17 season was Austrian Florian Dagn, who jumped 109.5 metres on Sunday. He started 2 seconds ahead of Slovenia’s Jaka Matko and 7 seconds before teammate Dominik Terzer. But this time, Kostner was not to be denied. Skiing the fastest time of the field again, the Italian beat Dagn in a finish line sprint by 0.1 second. Luis Lehnert crossed the finish line 3.4 seconds later.
With this result, Kostner clinches the OPA overall with 513 points over Marc Luis Reiner’s 408 points. Lilian Vaxelaire takes rank three with 389 points.
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