Athlete of the Week: Jørgen Graabak (NOR)

A weekend with two podium results is always impressive. If one of them is a victory by a finish line sprint that was so tight, that the finish photo showed a difference of a couple of centimetres as most, someone’s finishing abilities are certainly very impressive. This does not come as a surprise in the case of 2014 Sochi Olympic Champion Jørgen Graabak, who is known to be one of the Kings of Sprints on the last metres of a race but the end of the race in Lahti was maybe his most impressive sprint victory ever.

The 27-year-old had one World Cup victory already in the bank for this season and used the past weekend in Lahti to drive home the fact that you cannot disregard Graabak when it comes to title events. Looking at his season so far, Graabak managed to step up on the podium eight times already, three of them being Team Sprints or Team Events. Three Team silver medals are already in his collection from the World Championships in Val di Fiemme (2013), Falun (2015) and Lahti (2017). A Team Sprint or individual medal is still missing.

Howeber, with a decent jump, the fast skier is always in contention for a good result and looking at the - for Graabak’s normally calm, collected and reserved standards - exuberant reaction after his fifth rank, 122-metre jump in Lahti’s Individual Gundersen event on Sunday, there is visible progress when it comes to the first part of a Nordic Combined event for the Norwegian.

With his fast cross-country times and killer sprinting abilities, Graabak is a natural choice when it comes to the anchor skier in Team Sprint and Team Events and his finish in Lahti proved the point one more time. While Japan’s Akito Watabe took on a completely new role of the confident, fast challenger on the last 100 metres and even managed to get his body slightly ahead of Graabak at the finish line, the Norwegian artistically used every centimetre of his leg and foot to bring a crucial, tiny advantage of approximately two centimetres into the finish.

And even though local hero Eero Hirvonen managed to escape the Norwegian and the significant crash behind him in the Lahti Team Sprint, the fact remains: nobody will really want to meet Graabak on the final stretch of a World Championship race in Seefeld, be that a team or individual format.

Congrats to our killer Athlete of the Week: Jørgen Graabak!