Can Riiber break his Lahti curse?

The Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined World Cup returns to the Finnish venue of Lahti and as it has become tradition since 2012, a Team Sprint and and Individual Gundersen event are on schedule for this third-last weekend of the Nordic Combined winter season 2019/20.

This year, it will be hard to beat the excitement of last year’s Lahti weekend, which had local heroes Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen storm to the first Finnish World Cup victory in nine years, while Akito Watabe and Magnus Krog had an unfortunate crash on the final stretch. The Japanese redeemed himself with the second place in the Individual Gundersen event on the next day but lost out a finish line sprint against Norwegian sprint master Jørgen Graabak by the narrowest of margins.

An athlete, who can relate to not having the best of luck in Lahti is this season’s shooting star, Jarl Magnus Riiber. So far, Lahti has not been Riiber’s friend at all: in 2015, he crashed with Germany’s Johannes Rydzek on the way down into the stadium in the Team Sprint event in a big way, in 2016, he first took the wrong way into the finish while in the lead of the Individual Gundersen even and was disqualified and then had his shoulder jumping out of its socket during the Team Sprint race on the following day. He was not on the 2017 World Championship team here and did not compete in Lahti in 2018 and 2019.

This year, Riiber’s situation is quite a bit different: Even though Lahti is one of the few places on the tour, where he has never stood on the podium before, the 22-year-old can become the most successful Norwegian Nordic Combined athlete ever by setting his 27th victory and would also extend the season win record to 14 if he continues his unprecedented winning spree this winter.

While it remains to be seen if Riiber can fix his relationship with Lahti, the venue has always smiled on the German team and specifically Lahti 2017 four-time gold medallist Johannes Rydzek. With five German athletes in the Top Ten in the large hill event in Trondheim last Sunday, the team shows an upward trend, which head coach  Hermann Weinbuch wants to build on.

The Austrian team will have to compete without Johannes Lamparter, who is fighting for precious metals at the FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships in Oberwiesenthal (GER) and Franz-Josef Rehrl, who got hit in the ribs by Go Yamamoto’s ski in a racing accident in Trondheim last weekend and now focusses on becoming pain-free again.

The Programme

All times are local times (= CET - 1h)
Timetable may be subject to changes.

Friday, 28.02.
11:30 Official Training HS 130
13:30 Provisional Competition Round / Qualification
15:00 Official cross-country Training

Saturday, 29.02.
10:00 Trial Round HS 130
11:00 TEAM SPRINT Competition Round HS 130
15:45 TEAM SPRINT 2x 7.5 km cross-country race

Sunday, 01.03.
09:00 Trial Round HS 130
10:00 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN Competition Round HS 130
14:45 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN 10 km cross-country race

Quick Facts
HILL
Salpausselkä
HS 130

TRACK
Karpalo Sprint Course
1.5 km free-technique loop
Total climb: 47 m
Maximum climb: 25 m
Heigh Difference: 21 m

Karpalo South Course
2.5 km free-technique loop
Total climb: 100 metres
Maximum climb: 43 metres
Height Difference: 56 metres

LAST YEAR’S PODIUM
TS 1. Herola/Hirvonen (FIN), 2. Graabak/Bjørnstad (NOR), 3. Denifl/Seidl (AUT)
IG: 1. Jørgen Graabak (NOR), 2. Akito Watabe (JPN), 3. Mario Seidl (AUT)