Austria rules supreme at OPA-weekend in Seefeld
Dec 23, 2019·Nordic Combined
All four victories in the OPA Alpencup in Seefeld (AUT) were claimed by athletes from the host nation this past weekend. Annalena Slamik, Fabio Obermeyr, Lisa Hirner and Manuel Einkemmer won one event each this Saturday and Sunday.
Annalena Slamik triumphed on Saturday in the Women’s Ind. Gundersen 5 km event. The Austrian had taken the first place in Friday’s PCR which had to be used for the event on Saturday. Slamik jumped to 102. metres and with a total of 113 points, she started her race one minute and 24 seconds ahead of runner-up Annika Sieff from Italy (92.5 m; 92 p.). Slovenia’s Nika Prevc was third with 90.5 metres and 87.5 points and started +1:42 behind Slamik.
Even though Slamik only had the 14th fastest cross-country time of the 18 starters, she still finished 39.2 seconds ahead of her teammate Lisa Hirner who worked her way to the front from rank five. She beat Annika Sieff for the second place by 0.4 seconds in the end. Johanna Bassani (AUT) was fourth, Emilia Görlich (GER) fifth and Jenny Nowak sixth.
Also for the men, the PCR had to be used and here Stefan Rettenegger took the lead. 103.5 metres and 119.5 points gave Rettenegger a 36-second head start on teammate Fabian Hafner (99m; 110.5 p) and France’s Marc Heinis (99.5; 109.5 p.).
In the race, however, Obermayr stormed to the victory from the 14th place with the second-fastest cross-country time of the day. He finished a clear 18.1 seconds ahead of teammate Manuel Einkemmer, who skied to the silver rank from position twelve. Marco Heinis kept his third rank and finished 39 seconds after the winner.
On Sunday, the ski jumping events were held as planned and it was Nika Prevc who secured the pole position with a jump of 97 metres. 106.5 points put her 20 seconds in the lead of Lisa Hirner (95 m; 100 p.). Three second later, Johanna Bassani started her race after a 95 metre jump (99 p.).
Hirner shone on the shorter 2.5 km sprint distance and claimed the victory with the fastest race time of 07:03.8. She beat teammate Bassani by 8 seconds, rank three went to Italy’s Annika Sieff, who finished 30.5 seconds after the winner.
Final Results
Ski Jumping Results
In the men’s event, Manuel Einkemmer jumped to the pole position with a jump of 104.5 metres and 123 points. He had a 34-second advantage at the start line on runner-up Fabian Hafner (101 m; 114.5 p.). Samuel Lev completed an Austrian leading trio with 99.5 metres and 113.5 points. He followed his teammate on the track 38 seconds after the leader.
Einkemmer celebrated a start - finish victory as he was able to ski away from Hafner and finally finished 56.8 seconds ahead of Hafner. Samuel Lev kept his third place by finishing a second after Hafner. Together with Florian Kolb and the previous day’s winner Fabio Obermeyr, the Austrian team claimed all five first places and had six athletes in the Top Ten.
