Geraghty-Moats and Lange claim first victories in Park City
Dec 14, 2019·Nordic Combined
Tara Geraghty-Moats keeps winning streak alive
In spite of her serious crash at the Viessmann FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Lillehammer (NOR) last weekend, Women’s Nordic Combined’s dominator Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) won the first of three Continental Cup events in Park City (USA).
After ranking only 10th out of 13 ski jumpers, Geraghty-Moats made up a delay of one minute and 12 seconds on the 5 km cross-country track to win with an advantage of 13.5 seconds on Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR). Westvold Hansen ranked second in the ski jumping round as well and her 78.5 metres were only beaten by Canada’s Taylor Henrich. Henrich showed the top distance of 89.5 metres and with 88.8 points, she started her race from the pole position, followed by Westvold Hansen (+0:19) and Marte Leinan Lund (+0:31).
In the race, Westvold Hansen set the second-fastest time of 17:46.5 and while she was not able to fullly match the pace of the fast-approaching Geraghty-Moats, she took a clear second place, followed by her teammate Marte Leinan Lund on the bronze rank (+00:34.7). Germany’s Jenny Nowak ranked fourth, Daniela Dejori (ITA) was fifth and jumping winner Henrich ended up on position six.
Lange returns with first victory after career timeout
24-year-old Jakob Lange (GER) celebrated his first-ever Continental Cup victory on the men’s side. Lange had ended his ski jumping round on the fifth position (94 m;112.2 p.) and took up his race with a delay of +0:51 seconds.
Austria’s Christian Deuschl was the jumping winner with 97.5 metres and 125 points, Sindre Ure Søtvik and Simon Hüttel followed at +0:35 and +0:39. Also Czech Republic’s Jan Vytrval, USA’s Ben Loomis and Ukraine’s Dmytro Mazurchuk showed good jumping performances and all started within a minute from the leader.
Lange, who came off a longer career break due to illness last year, set the fastest cross-country time with 28:31.2 and beat his pursuers soundly by 57.3 seconds in the end. Norway’s Søtvik was the second man to cross the finish line, followed by teammate Leif Torbjørn Næsvold, who claimed position three with a delay of +1:03.0. He had skied up to the podium from the intermediate ninth position.
Fast skier Paul Gerstgraser was the second-fastest man of the day and improved from position 16 to four, followed by Lukas Danek, who skied from 25 to six. Jan Vytrval and Aguri Shimizu plus a strong German team performance by Martin Hahn, Wendelin Thannheimer and Justin Moczarski completed the Top Ten.
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