Fighting for gold x 2
Feb 23, 2019·Nordic Combined
With the LH 2x 7.5 km Team Sprint coming up at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Seefeld, the search for the best Nordic Combined duo is on.
Having made its competition debut in 2013, it is the fourth edition of the Team Sprint at World Championships and with the first two editions going to France and the most recent one to Germany, a number of “new” nations are looking to get their hands on Team Sprint gold.
One competition ski jump and a fast-paced 5x 1.5 km race for each athlete, interchanging with his teammate, will determine gold, silver and bronze in Innsbruck and Seefeld and mark the end of Nordic Combined’s run on the HS 130 Bergisel large hill for this championship.
The duo of Jason Lamy Chappuis and Sebastien Lacroix, the first Team Sprint World Champions have retired since and only Francois Braud is left from the 2015 winner pair but does not start tomorrow. So only Eric Frenzel has the chance to repeat his Team Sprint gold winning performance and will be teaming up with Fabian Rießle, not 2017 quadruple World Champion Johannes Rydzek in the competition tomorrow.
Looking at other medal candidates for this event among the 15 nations on start is exciting as a host of teams can compete for precious metals: Brother duo Akito and Yoshito Watabe, who made history in Lahti by becoming the first athletes from a non-European country to win a medal in this event at World Championships, have the chance to further their achievements two years later.
The local heroes from Austria are pairing experience with youthful exuberance, cross-country power and ski jumping skills and send Bernhard Gruber and Franz-Josef Rehrl into the fray. The Finnish duo IIkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen have proven what they can do with their Team Sprint win in Lahti, just before the championships. Overall World Cup leader Jarl Magnus Riiber will pair up with yesterday’s silver medallist Jan Schmid to battle for the first World Championship gold medal for Norway since 2005 and also Team Italy is known to be a contender in the Team Sprint on a good day. After his strong 13th place yesterday, youngster Aaron Kostner will team up with his childhood hero Alessandro Pittin in the fight for medals.
It remains to be seen if the second Nordic Combined event of the championships will be similarly surprising as the first one but with a wide open field like this, many outcomes are possible.
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