COC-W/M: Lange and Geraghty-Moats confirm overall wins
Mar 11, 2020·Nordic Combined
Germany’s Jakob Lange and USA’s Tara Geraghty-Moats have both confirmed their names on top of the Continental Cup 2019/20 overall standings with victories in Nizhny Tagil (RUS). While Lange was already confirmed as winner 2019/20, Geraghty-Moats is now also over a 100 points ahead of closest pursuer, Marte Leinan Lund with only one event to go tomorrow.
Geraghty-Moats had a strong jump of 87.5 metres and started her race from number two, just two seconds behind juming winner and local hero Stefaniya Nadymova (RUS). Nadymova showed 90.5 metres (107.2 p.), the longest jump of the day. Lisa Hirner, Johanna Bassani and Sigrun Kleinrath were an Austrian trio on ranks three to five and started their respective 5 km races with delays of +0:24, +0:28 and +0:35 seconds on Nadymova, but were closely followed by COC overall runner-up Marte Leinan Lund from Norway (+0:39).
With Geragthy-Moats deciding to win the race from the front, the American was soon a lonely racer and finally finished in her usual style, +33.1 seconds ahead of the closest pursuer. A four-women strong pursuing group with Leinan Lund and the three Austrians closed the gap on Nadymova at the beginning of the second lap and even if it looked like Leinan Lund could open a slight gap on her three Austrian competitors, Junior World Championship bronze medallist Lisa Hirner fought back.
In the end, Hirner outsprinted Leinan Lund by 0.7 seconds on the final stretch to claim second. Sigrun Kleinrath kept Stefaniya Nadymova at bay by 1.1 seconds to take fourth, Johanna Bassani was sixth. The remaining Top Ten spots went to Mari Leinan Lund, Svetlana Gladikova, Hanna Midtsundstad and Anastasia Goncharova.
Jakob Lange claimed a very promising fourth place in the jumping round in Nizhny Tagil but the top jump of the day went to teammate Jonas Maier, who showed 93.5 metres (119.7 p.). He gained a head start of three seconds on Norway's Lars Ivar Skaarset with his jump, as Skaarset had jumped to 95 metres to collect 119 points. Third-placed Kasper Moen Flatla also landed at 95 metres and 118.4 points meant a delay of five seconds on the jumping winner.
Lange's 93 metres had him leave the start gate nine seconds after his teammate and in total, the field was closely together after the the jump with Russian Ernest Yahin just 18 seconds behind, followed by Dominik Terzer two seconds later and another two second later, Norway's Simen Tiller left the start line.
Lange stayed with a group of athletes for the first part of the race but as no one wanted to share the burden to lead the group, he decided to go solo after 5 km. The German was very secure in his level of performance and skied a perfectly paced race, so that no other athlete was able to endanger his seventh season victory anymore. Lange passed the finish line 9.2 seconds ahead of a fast-approaching Lars Buraas (NOR). The Norwegian fast skier had the fastest time of the day once more and needed 22:36.8 to ski from position 33 through the field to claim the second place in the end.
Fellow fast skiers Aleksander Skoglund and Justin Moczarski came from positions 21 and 14 and fought for the third place in a finish line sprint with the better end for the Norwegian. Skoglund finally finished 0.1 point ahead of Moczarski. Samuel Mraz skied a courageous race in the top group but had to be satisfied with position five, Simen Tiller was sixth, Kasper Moen Flatla seventh, Lars Ivar Skaarset ended up on position eight, Paul Gerstgraser in ninth and Martin Hahn closed out the Top Ten.
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