Tara Geraghty-Moats storms to victory

Tara Geraghty-Moats took the win in the second Ladies’ Individual Gundersen event in Oberwiesenthal. The American showed her cross-country prowess after a good jump and ended her race one minute and 14 seconds ahead of Russia’s Stefaniya Nadymova. Jenny Nowak finished third again, +1:29.2 after the American.

The jumping event shook yesterday’s ranking up quite a bit with Germany’s Jenny Nowak taking a narrow lead over Geraghty-Moats (94.5 m) and Lisa Hirner (95 m), who shared the second intermediate position with 106.1 points each. This meant a four-second delay on Nowak, who had shown 96 metres (107.1 p.).

Yesterday’s winner Stefaniya Nadymova landed at 98 metres in the trial round but was only able to get to 93 metres in the competition round. A point total of 105.2 metres meant only eight seconds of delay for her at the start line, however. Behind the first four athletes, a bigger gap opened to Sophia Maurus, who left the start line one minute and 29 seconds later than Geraghty-Moats. Svetlana Gladikova was sixth (+2:02).

In the race, Geraghty-Moats was never in any real danger of losing the victory after she left Hirner, Nadymova and Nowak behind in the first lap of the race. The Russian and the German skied together for most of the second round but going out on the third lap, Nadymova emerged as the stronger roller-skier and put some distance between her and the local hero.

Even though beaten, Nowak did not give up and finished the race just 15 seconds after Nadymova. Ranks four to six went to Lisa Hirner, Sophia Maurus and Svetlana Gladikova.

In the overall ranking, this meant a draw between Geragthy-Moats and Nadymova who both ended the weekend with a victory and a second place. With 180 points each, the American and the Russian split the honours. Jenny Nowak ended the summer on rank three with a total of 120 points.

Overall Standings