COC-L: Tara Geraghty-Moats continues winning spree also in Estonia
Jan 05, 2019·Nordic Combined
Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) continued to dominate the Ladies' Nordic Combined Continental Cup, claiming her fourth victory in her fourth start and took back the green bib of the COC leader today. This time, she beat her closest adversary, Ayane Miyazaki from Japan by 53 seconds. Previous Continental Cup leader Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR) claimed another podium result with rank three. She finished one minute and 28 seconds after Geraghty-Moats.
As the wind made ski jumping impossible also earlier in the morning when it was the ladies' turn, yesterday’s Provisional Competition Round had to be taken into consideration as well. It was Tara Geraghty-Moats who had won the round yesterday with a distance of 92 metres (114.6 p.) and was set up perfectly to go for another victory.
Last year’s Continental Cup runner-up Ayane Miyazaki (JPN) joined the competitions again after sitting out the U.S. leg of the tour and claimed the second position in the jumping ranking. 91.5 metres gave her 109.3 points and a 21 second delay on the track. She had to defend her position well to hold off current Continental Cup leader Gyda Westvold Hansen, who confirmed her great jumping shape yet again. 93 metres, the longest jump of the day but slightly lower judges score gave her a total of 107.3 points and a 29 second delay for the cross-country race.
Germany’s Jenny Nowak was fourth and started her race 55 seconds after Geraghty-Moats, a steep task to make up in a 5 km race. Following at one minute and two seconds was Japan’s Ringo Miyajima, Marte Leinan Lund started with a delay of one minute and 22 seconds, closely together with Ema Volavsek (SLO) at +1:25 and Lena Brocard (FRA) at +1:28.
On the track, Tara Geraghty-Moats was uncatchable and steadily increased her advantage over pursuers Miyazaki and Westvold Hansen from 21 seconds at the start to 53 seconds at the finish line. Behind her, the expected tight duel between Miyazaki and Westvold Hansen raged until the halfway point of the race. Going out on the final lap, the Japanese increased her speed and Westvold Hansen was not able to match her pace. In the end, half a minute separated the two athletes with Miyazaki starting her season off with a good second place and the Norwegian finishing third.
Jenny Nowak (GER) remained on rank four, while teammate Maria Gerboth improved from position nine to a final fifth rank. The remainder of the Top Ten ranks went to Slovenia's Ema Volavsek, Ringo Mijajima (JPN), Marte Leinan Lund (NOR), Lena Brocard (FRA) and fastest skier Anju Nakamura (JPN), who skied to position 10 from rank 18.
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