COC-M: Harald Riiber continues winning streak
Jan 18, 2020·Nordic Combined
While the Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined World Cup is taking a break this weekend, Continental Cup action continues in Klingenthal (GER). Due to the warm temperatures and the lack of snow, no cross-country track was available in the Saxonian town. Therefore, the OC in Oberhof (GER) jumped in and agreed on holding the cross-country part in their stadium – about 200 kilometres away from Klingenthal. So the schedule was changed, one jumping part was already held on Friday evening, the second one on Saturday morning and then all the teams packed their bags and moved on to Oberhof.
Despite this unusual setup, the winner of the skijumping part was the same as the week before. With a jump on 133.5 metres (129.9 p.) Norway’s Harald Riiber put himself in an excellent position for the cross-country, 26 seconds ahead of Lars Ivar Skaarset (132 metres, 123.4 p.) and 42 seconds ahead of Sindre Ure Soetvik (129 metres, 119.3 p.). Manuel Einkemmer from Austria (126.5 metres, 113.6 p.) was 4th, followed by Dmytro Mazurchuk (121.5 metres, 102.4 p.) and Alexander Pashaev (122 metres, 102.1 p.).
Continental Cup overall leader Jakob Lange followed on 13th place with a deficit of 2:27 minutes (117 metres, 93.2 p.), Paul Gerstgraser was 21st with2:48 minutes (113.5 metres, 87.9 p.).
A few hours later everybody had found their way to Oberhof and the cross-country race took place in quite difficult conditions. The track was very icy, which led to numerous falls. A fact that didn’t irritate Riiber or Skaarset, who celebrated a clear Norwegian double victory. The fight for the third spot on the podium got very exciting.
Manuel Einkemmer was able to close the gap to Soetvik in third lap and the two of them tried to keep strong cross-country skier Lange at bay, who inched closer and closer. In the last downhill, Soetvik fell and lost precious seconds. Einkemmer was able to get away from the Norwegian and celebrated his career’s first Continental Cup podium. Soetvik finished fourth, Lange was not quite able to catch him and ended up on fifth place. With Aguri Shimizu (JPN), Paul Gerstgraser (AUT), Jan Vytrval (CZE), Rok Jelen (SLO) and Dmytro Mazurchuk (UKR) the positions six to ten went to athletes from five different nations.
Final Results
Ski Jumping Results
Romina Eggert
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