The return to Nordic Combined heartland

With the second week of the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Seefeld 2019, the competition activity returns to a venue that is well-known to all Nordic Combined athletes: the HS 109 Toni Seelos hill.

The famed location of the Nordic Combined TRIPLE, Seefeld and its hill has become known as German superstar Eric Frenzel’s “living room”:  from 2010 to the World Championships 2019, the 30-year-old has claimed an astonishing number of 14 individual victories in Seefeld, including four editions of the TRIPLE. After two gold medals here so far, the German is of course also on the favourite list for tomorrow’s event and can continue on his path to a gold medal swipe, same as teammate Johannes Rydzek did in Lahti two years ago.

Looking at the training results, Rydzek had one or the other good jump as well, which might help him considerably in the upcoming event. While Frenzel’s performances seemed to be a bit up and down, similar to the Bergisel trainings, also teammate Fabian Rießle convinced with some of his jumps. Last year’s TRIPLE and overall World Cup winner Akito Watabe had stable jumps in the Top Ten but does not seem to be in his best jumping shape, whereas his brother Yoshito won both rounds of the second training.

Current World Cup champion Jarl Magnus Riiber came, saw and conquered with a 110.5 metre jump in the first training, the longest jumped distance of all three training days, which Riiber repeated in the last training round on Wednesday. Three stable, top class training jumps have the Norwegian back among the favourites for the second individual title of the championships. If the 21-year-old can hold up under pressure, he might finally give Norway the yearned for Nordic Combined gold medal that has proved elusive since 2005.

Riiber’s teammate Espen Bjørnstad has also been shining with top performances and won one round of training on Monday, as did Germany’s Terence Weber. It remains to be seen if anyone can challenge the Emperor of Seefeld in his very kingdom but the Nordic Combined athletes will certainly put on a great show at one of the most important places for the discipline.

Start List
Results Training 1
Results Training 2
Results Training 3