Fabian Rießle makes it three in a row
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
Fabian Rießle made it three victories in a row with a second triumph in Klingenthal today. Teammate Johannes Rydzek delighted the German fans also with his second place, finishing one second after Rießle. Akito Watabe took home the overall World Cup with his third place today. He finished 5.5 seconds after Rießle, leads the standings with 1235 points and cannot be caught by pursuer Jan Schmid (1033 p.) anymore.
The PCR on Friday had already been a difficult jumping round but changing and uncontrollable conditions made jumping impossible in Klingenthal’s Vogtlandarena, so that the PCR had to be used to ensure the competition.
While World Cup leader Akito Watabe had conquered the pole position with a jump of 134 metres and 135.5 points, the fight for the overall got exciting again with Jan Schmid’s second place and only 18 seconds to make up on Watabe. Starting with a 202 point deficit and only 300 points to win still, Schmid urgently needed to gain ground on Watabe and hold off Germany’s Fabian Rießle at the same time, who trailed the Norwegian by 143 points only. The task was not made easy by Rießle’s good PCR jump of 127 metres and rank three, which had the German starting only 18 seconds after Schmid as well.
After his slight mishap and crash on the track yesterday, Johannes Rydzek was given a new chance for a great result with a jump of 127.5 m and a delay of 46 seconds at the start. Lukas Klapfer was also out and hunting for more podium results with intermediate position six (+0:56). Teammate Bernhard Gruber started with a time behind of one minute and five seconds and the fast Finns Eero Hirvonen and Ilkka Herola had to battle one minute and 18 and 28 seconds respectively.
Akito Watabe went out into a very important race for him a little nervously but quickly found a good rhythm and lead the field until Johannes Rydzek and Fabian Rießle closed the gap going out onto the last lap. Even if they brought Jan Schmid with them, who they had caught after the 4 km point of the race, Watabe did not let his nerves get to him and stayed with the two Germans, while Schmid had to let go when the race neared its conclusion.
There was no stopping Fabian Rießle, who is in a uber-shape at the moment and so the 27-year-old extended his winning streak to three in a row, heading to his home World Cup in Schonach next. Johannes Rydzek had to be contend with rank two, a big consolation after his crash yesterday and Watabe cruised to rank three and entered the Nordic Combined history books as the second Japanese overall winner after Kenji Ogiwara.
Jan Schmid finished fourth, +44.1 seconds after Rießle, teammate Jørgen Graabak followed on position five, Bernhard Gruber, Lukas Klapfer and Willi Denifl were an Austrian triple on ranks six to eight and the Top Ten were closed out by Manuel Faißt and Ilkka Herola.
With this results, the Best Jumper and Best Skier Trophies are decided as well: Akito Watabe wins the Best Jumper Trophy with currently 1343 points and Alessandro Pittin was the best skier of the season with 1221 points.
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