COC-L/M: Westvold Hansen prevails, Fletcher returns to winning ways
Dec 21, 2018·Nordic Combined
The last day of competitions of the 2018 FIS Continental Cup in Park City (USA) reached a new level of drama and excitement with USA Nordic’s Taylor Fletcher recovering from a frustrating fourth place the day before and storming to a tour-de-force victory and Norway’s Gyda Westvold Hansen taking her first Continental Cup win in a finish that involved a crash of leading Canadian Taylor Henrich.
23-year-old Henrich had jumped to the lead in the jumping round on Utah Olympic Park’s HS 100 hill. 89 metres but her three seconds ahead of Westvold Hansen, who, after a number of second place finishes, was itching for her first victory. Veronica Gianmoena and Stefaniya Nadymova followed 36 seconds behind Henrich after jumping to 86.5 and 98 metres. Triple winner Tara Geraghty-Moats had to sit the competition out due to a cold.
On the track, the race developed into a true nailbiter. Henrich and Westvold Hansen stayed together for most of the two laps until the Canadian gained a decisive advantage on the flat downhill parts of the last lap. Henrich looked like the winner of the event until a crash on the last metres of downhill had Westvold Hansen close the gap again and overtake Henrich on the last uphill into the stadium.
Behind the battling duo, Germany’s Jenny Nowak inched closer and closer and managed to close a 40-second gap from the start to also overtake Henrich on the last uphill. Nowak charged to her second second place in as many days and Henrich had to be satisfied with a heartbreaking third place finish but at least also returned to the podium for a second time.
Stefaniya Nadymova was fourth (+54.5), Veronica Gianmoena fifth (+1:06.1) and the fastest skier on the track was Ida Marie Hagen, who finished sixth and needed 13:42.9 for the 5 km.
Final Results
Ski Jumping Results
In the overall standings, this means a 10-point lead for Westvold Hansen (310) over Geraghty-Moats (300). Veronica Gianmoena hold the third position with 200 points.
On the men's side, Taylor Fletcher was competing with some frustration by a finish hampered by overlapped traffic in yesterday's event. In the jumping round, this translated to a jump of 90 metres and the intemediate position 12 with one minute and 35 seconds to make up on the top jumper, Ryota Yamamoto from Japan. 102 metres put him firmly in the lead, with Germany's David Mach following on rank two (93 m). The Japanese had a big gap of one minute and six seconds to play with for the race and defended his advantage well. Leif Torbjørn Næsvold was third after the jumping round and started with a delay of one minute and seven seconds.
In the race, Yamamoto skied a strong race at the head of the field until Taylor Fletcher decided he was done playing games in the chasing group. The 28-year-old set an attack on the second of four laps, went away from the group, caught Yamamoto and just kept on going. Never showing any signs of weakness, Fletcher finally finished a clear 30.2 seconds ahead of his closest pursuers.
Behind him, the battle for position two and three was on with a bigger pursuing group hashing things out between them. Yesterday's third placed Julian Schmid was very strong on the last metres and improved his best to a second place and just 0.2 seconds later, Yamamoto secured a third-place finish, also a career-best for the 21-year-old. But also the fourth place finisher, Aaron Kostner from Italy improved his personal best yet again and was delighted with his result. The rest of the Top Ten positions went to David Welde, Lukas Runggaldier, Lars Buraas, Jakob Lange, Leif Torbjørn Næsvold and Kodai Kimura.
Final Results
Ski Jumping Results
With this triumph, Taylor Fletcher now leads the overall standings with 330 points, followed by Paul Gerstgraser (271). Lukas Runggaldier is third with 230 points.
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