Rießle claims national titles at home, Laheurte surprises

Germany’s Fabian Rießle won the summer national championships 2019, held in Hinterzarten and Rießle’s home Breitnau in the Black Forest on the past weekend. The fastest skiing time of the field catapulted Rießle to the victory from intermediate rank eleven.

Terence Weber claimed the pole position in the Alder Skistadion in Hinterzarten with a jump of 100 metres. 126.8 points gave him a head start of 25 seconds on runner-up Manuel Faißt who had landed at 96.5 metres. David Welde and Eric Frenzel showed 98 metres respectively, giving them the start positions three and four. Olympic Champion Johannes Rydzek was disqualified.

28 athletes were on start for the final race at Breitnau and fast racer Fabian Rießle showed his class. With 21:59.5, he was the fastet athlete on the track, claiming the German Championship title with a narrow margin over Eric Frenzel, who set the second-fastest time of the day and has less of a time disadvantage to make up. 0.8 seconds divided the two world-class athletes in the end. Jumping winner Terence Weber fought hard and managed to retain a podium spot with position three. He finished 38.7 seconds after Rießle.

Manuel Faißt, David Welde and Justin Moczarski claimed positions four to six. In the junior rankings, this meant a victory for Simon Hüttel (rank seven in general ranking), Adrian Glaareva was second (9th in general ranking) and Julian Schmid third (10th in general ranking).

However, it was Maxime Laheurte who pulled off the biggest surprise of the day. The Frenchman started in a guest class and therefore had no place in the German Championship ranking. With a jump of 102.5 metres (138.3 p.), he was the actual winner of the jumping event and started his race with a 46-second-lead on the best German jumper, Terence Weber. A racing time of 23:36.0 had him cross the finish line ten second ahead of Fabian Rießle, fabricating an upset of all German athletes at their own championships.

Final Results
Ski Jumping Results
Junior Rankings

In the Team Sprint, Rießle claimed yet another gold medal, this time together with fellow Baden-Württembergian Manuel Faißt. A good jumping result had both starting only five seconds behind jumping winners and "Team SSV Geyer", Terence Weber and Eric Frenzel who officially started as Saxony I. David Mach and Julian Schmid for Bavaria II held the intermediate third place after the jumping part.

In the race, however, they had to clear the way for team Bavaria I with Olympic and World Champion Johannes Rydzek together with the newly-minted junior German national champion Simon Hüttel. They stormed to the podium from rank seven, making up a 41-second delay in the process. Frenzel and Weber had to concede defeat to an unbeatable Fabian Rießle and Manuel Faißt by 4.6 seconds.

Final Results
Ski Jumping Results