Germany defends Team Sprint Gold

Eric Frenzel and Fabian Rießle defended the Team Sprint World Champion title for Germany. In a start-finish victory, the clock stopped 8.2 seconds earlier than runners-up Team Norway, who in turn beat out the local heroes from Austria to the bronze medal by 1 second.

Team Germany returned to old strength on the jumping hill. Spurned on by his individual victory two days ago, Eric Frenzel laid a solid foundation with a jump of 130 metres (129.9 p.) and had only 0.1 points less than round winner Akito Watabe (130 m, 130 p.). Fabian Rießle performed on the same high level and showed 128 metres. A point total of 258.2 had Germany taking the pole position for the race with an eight second head start on the Brothers Watabe.

Berhard Gruber and Franz-Josef Rehrl kept the Austrian hopes alive with jumps to 123.5 and 128.5 metres. 247.2 points meant the intermediate third position with a deficit of 22 seconds at the start line. Norway’s Jan Schmid was satisfied with his 127.5 metre effort but teammate Jarl Riiber fell a little short with 123 metres, so the Norwegians had to start their campaign for their first World Championship gold since 2005 with a time disadvantage of 27 seconds.

Behind the first four teams, a bigger gap of over a minute opened as the next three teams, France, Poland and Italy started with delays of +1:38, +1:45 and +1:48. Lahti Team Sprint winners Eero Hirvonen and Ilkka Herola from Finland had a black day on the hill and were only eighth in the intermediate ranking. With a delay of two minutes and 31 seconds, they did not have the chance for a top result today.

Germany captured the gold medal in a clear start - finish victory, which of course meant that Eric Frenzel and Fabian Rießle had to ski all by themselves for the full duration of the 2x 7.5 km distance.

Behind the leaders, Japan, Norway and Austria found each other already on the first lap and continued together until the 10.5 km point when Yoshito Watabe had to let go of the other two nations shortly before the exchange and Akito Watabe was not able to close the gap anymore.

While Franz-Josef Rehrl made a very strong impression on the cross-country track and tried to open a gap to Jan Schmid on his legs of the race but was ultimately not successful. While Fabian Rießle cruised to the second German Nordic Combined gold medal of the championships, it came down to a finish line sprint for Norway and Austria. 2018/19 overall World Cup winner Jarl Magnus Riiber proved to have the stronger finish than Gruber and gave his teammate Jan Schmid the second silver medal in two days. For Franz-Josef Rehrl, this result meant that he double up his bronze medals as well. Team Japan had to be contend with rank four, Italy was fifth, France sixth and Finland seventh.

Final Results
Ski Jumping Results