COC-M: Lars Ivar Skaarset celebrates third victory in a row
Feb 02, 2020·Nordic Combined
Lars Ivar Skaarset (NOR) also won the second FIS Continental Cup competition in Planica. Once again, he created the basis for his success with a jump on 138.5m (135.6 p.).
The winner of the jumping competition, however, was Skaarset’s teammate Simen Tiller, who reached the same distance (138.5m, 136.8 p.). Business as usual, the third rank after jumping went to Sindre Ure Soetvik (135.5m, 131.8 p.). Fourth was Austria’s Christian Deuschl (127.5m, 121.2 p.), already 1:02 minutes behind Tiller. Fifth was Kasper Moen Flatla (129.5 m, 121.0 p.), sixth place went to Slovenia’s Rok Jelen (129.5m, 120.7 p.). Overall leader and strong cross-country skier Jakob Lange followed on rank seven (128.5m, 120.4 p.) with a disadvantage of +1:06 minutes.
During the cross-country race it didn’t take very long until Skaarset had made up his five seconds of disadvantage on Tiller and the two Norwegians were able to make the pace together. Behind them, Lange showed yet another strong cross-country performance and got closer and closer. Due to the fact that none of the other competitors was able to keep up with him, he had to close the gap to the Norwegians on his own, which cost him a lot of energy.
Behind him also Jan Vytrval showed a very strong performance on the track. The young Czech was 20th after jumping, with a disadvantage of +1:48 minutes. Vytrval was able to make up position by position, leading the following group. Skaarset had enough energy left to get rid of his teammate Tiller in the middle of the fourth lap, celebrating his third victory in a row. Tiller was not so lucky and got caught by Lange and ended up on third place, +5.6 seconds behind the German.
Fourth place went to Vytrval, fifth was local hero Rok Jelen, who was also able to show a strong cross-country performance. Sixth was Soetvik, followed by Justin Moczarski, Kasper Moen Flatla, Wendelin Thannheimer and Arttu Mäkiaho. The fastest cross-country time went to USA’s Taylor Fletcher, who was on 50th place after jumping and ended the race as 14th.
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