Stefaniya Nadymova keeps on winning firsts

Russia’s Stefaniya Nadymova added another first victory to her merit list. After winning the first-ever Ladies Nordic Combined Contentinal Cup overall last winter, she also stepped on top of the podium at the inaugural Ladies’ Nordic Combined summer event.

Nadymova stepped up her game on the jumping hill after having been beaten by young Austrian Lisa Hirner in the PCR yesterday. Today, Nadymova prevailed with 93.5 metres (102 p.) and gained an 8-second lead on Hirner, who landed at 97 metres (99.9 p.). Local hero Jenny Nowak claimed the intermediate third position with 93 metres and 97.8 metres. She had 17 seconds to make up on the track.

Behind the leading trio, the gap to the other athletes was a bit bigger with USA’s Tara Geraghty-Moats leading the pursuers after an 86-metre jump. She started one minute and 13 seconds behind leader Nadymova. Annemarii Bendi (EST) and Eva Hubinger (AUT) followed at +1:43 and +2:31.

In the race, Stefaniya Nadymova fought hard to retain her lead on the 4.5 km track and in the end, her persistence paid off. Even though Tara Geraghty-Moats stormed through the field, three seconds separated the Russian and the American at the finish line. With 11.11.4, Geraghty-Moats was the fasted skier on the track and closed a one minute and ten second gap to Nadymova.

Jenny Nowak delighted the audience with the third place and received frenetic applause by the numerous spectators when the crossed the finish line 50.3 seconds later than the winner. Youngster Lisa Hirner ended up on the fourth position, Annemarii Bendi was fifth and Anastasia Goncharova turned a tenth position to a final rank six.

“The competition today was really nice and I am very pleased with my victory. Oberwiesenthal is a great place for us to compete and I’ll gladly come back in the future", Nadymova commented her win after the race.

Runner-up Geraghty-Moats added: "“It was a dream come true to finally be able to compete in women’s Nordic Combined on an international level. I’m using this weekend to learn the level I have to be at to have success in Nordic Combined. I made some mistakes today and learned a lot but I came away with a good result and having had a huge amount of fun competing with small but strong field.”