COC-M: Podium sweep for Noway in Klingenthal
Jan 05, 2019·Nordic Combined
Yesterday’s winner is also today’s winner in Klingenthal, and he brought a couple of teammates with him. Jens Lurås Oftebro took his second victory in as many days and beat his teammates soundly: one minute and 16 seconds separated him from runner-up Sindre Ure Soetvik, Leif Torbjørn Næsvold returned to the podium on rank three and finished a whopping one minute and 35 seconds after Oftebro.
Originally, the premiere of the new, shortened edition of the Team Event was scheduled for today but as in Otepää, strong winds also made ski jumping impossible in Klingenthal. The Provisional Competition Round had to be used and the format changed to an Individual Gundersen event. The Team Event has been rescheduled for tomorrow.
In the PCR, Oftebro took the pole position with a jump of 141.5 metres and 129.3 points, giving him a 26-second head start on teammate Sindre Ure Søtvik. Søtvik jumped a new hill record of 147.5 metres but lower judges’ scores relegated him to the second position. Næsvold also held his third position at the start already with a gap of 50 seconds on Oftebro after showing 137.5 metres. All following athletes had bigger gaps to make up, among them German Luis Lehnert on rank four with +01:43 and all the way back to start delays of over eight minutes for the last athletes.
Oftebro celebrated a start-finish victory on the track in Johanngeorgenstadt, with the gaps to his pursuers increasing steadily. While the first three athletes defended their positions, Italian Aaron Kostner stormed to the front with the fourth-best cross-country time and claimed rank four, only ten seconds behind Næsvold in the end. The rest of the Top Ten positions went to Germany’s David Welde and Luis Lehnert, Go Sonehara (JPN), Alexander Pashaev (RUS), Thomas Jöbstl (AUT) and Thomas Rettenegger (AUT). Germany’s Jakob Lange was the fastest skier once again and a cross-country time of 26:24.0 turned his starting position 32 in the final 18th position.
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