COC-W: Geraghty-Moats delivers last masterpiece in Nizhny Tagil
Mar 12, 2020·Nordic Combined
Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) was unstoppable in the last competition of the season 2019/20 again and won the day, as well as the overall standings.
After the warm weather had caused many problems with inrun track on the ski jumping hill, the competition rounds in the morning had to be cancelled and Friday’s Provisional Competition Rounds were used for men and women.
Lisa Hirner was the woman to beat on the jumping hill in the PCR and showed 94 metres and 114.2 points. She claimed a 10-second lead on Russia’s Stefaniya Nadymova (94.5 m; 111.8 p.) and Austria’s Sigrun Kleinrath was third with 93 metres and 110.1 points. She started 16 seconds after her teammate. Overall leader Tara Geraghty-Moats only had the eighth-best jump and started with a delay of one minute and five seconds.
In the race, Hirner formed a leading trio together with Nadymova and Kleinrath but it became apparent that the Russian was no match for the two Austrians. Tara Geraghty-Moats came flying from behind and overtook the leaders at the beginning of the second lap. She continued to ski away from them and finally won the race but only with an advantage of 8.6 seconds on Sigrun Kleinrath, who celebrated a career-best second place. Kleinrath had broken away from teammate Lisa Hirner on the last lap, who finished third, +18.8 seconds after the winner.
Behind the top three places, a hard fight was raging for the remaining spots. Mari Leinan Lund finally reached the finish line about seven seconds ahead of her younger sister Marte, who also came charging from behind. She, in turn, bested Johanna Bassani and Stefaniya Nadymova for rank five. Hanna Midtsundstad, Svetlana Gladikova and Alexandra Glazunova rounded out the Top Ten.
In the overall standings, Tara Geraghty-Moats won with a total of 660 points. Marte Leinan Lund (NOR) claimed position two with 487, and even if she was absent in Russia and represented by her three teammates on the podium, Gyda Westvold Hansen claimed position three (310). She beat today’s second placed Sigrun Kleinrath by three points in the end.
In the Nations Cup, Norway won with 1684 points, followed by the United States of America (1260) and Russia (1064).
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