Akito Watabe remains the King of Oslo

Akito Watabe claimed a victory at Holmenkollen today and got to meet King Harald V again to collect his fourth King’s Cup. Watabe skied superbly and finished a clear 15.5 seconds ahead of Germany’s Fabian Rießle. Mario Seidl out-sprinted Watabe’s pursuer in the overall, Jan Schmid, for the third rank and finished 20.3 seconds after Watabe.

Jarl Riiber was the measure of all things on the jumping hill with a jump of 132 metres (137.8 p.). The resident of Oslo started the cross-country race at his home town 28 seconds ahead of runner-up Akito Watabe from Japan, who recovered after a weaker jump yesterday and showed 129 metres today. Mario Seidl claimed the third intermediate position with 131 metres (127.1 p.) and started his race with a delay of 43 seconds.

In the jumping part, Jan Schmid kept his chances intact to make up some points on Watabe with a jump of 125.5 metres and the intermediate fifth position, starting just 20 seconds after the Japanese. Lukas Klapfer and Fabian Rießle also had good chances for a podium result with good jumping performances of 128.5 (123.5 p.) and 124.5 metres (122.1 p.) and the starting positions seven and eight. They had to contend with time disadvantages of 57 seconds and one minute and three seconds.

A little further back were the World Cup top athletes Eero Hirvonen, Eric Frenzel, Johannes Rydzek and Jørgen Graabak. They started with delays of +1:35, +1:50, +1:55 and +2:06.

Jarl Riiber lead the way through the first 2.5 km lap of the race, even though Akito Watabe, who had the help of fast skis today, steadily inched closer until he closed the gap at the beginning of the long 5 km loop. Watabe and Riiber enjoyed the frenetic cheers and support from the massive crowd in Oslo’s Holmenkollen and Frognerseteren forests and managed to keep the gap to the pursuers from shrinking.

By the 7.5 km point, Riiber had had to let got of Watabe and while the Japanese steadily skied towards his fourth victory in Oslo, the 15th of his career, Riiber went out into the last 2.5 km of the race in danger. Fabian Rießle was pushing the group of pursuers that also contained teammate Manuel Faißt, Jan Schmid, Mario Seidl and Franz-Josef Rehrl.

In the end Fabian Rießle went away from the group but was not able to stop Watabe anymore. Mario Seidl and Jan Schmid fought for valuable World Cup points and rank three but a tired Schmid had slightly shorter legs than an equally tired Seidl. Jarl Riiber was caught after all and had to be content with rank five in the end, Manuel Faißt finished as sixth, Franz-Josef Rehrl was seventh, Johannes Rydzek skied to rank eight with the fastest skiing time of 24:03.3 and Eero Hirvonen and Eric Frenzel closed out the Top Ten.

Mikko Kokslien ended his career on his 33rd birthday today and finished 25th.