Geraghty-Moats and Lange keep on winning in Mass Start events
Dec 15, 2019·Nordic Combined
Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) and Jakob Lange (GER) keep on dominating the COC events in Park City (USA). Even though the Mass Start reversed the order of cross-country skiing and ski jumping, yesterday’s winners prevailed also in this night’s competitions at Soldier Hollow and Utah Olympic Park.
As expected, Geraghty-Moats was the fastest skier on the 5 km course and won the race in a time of 14:31. Her closest adversary, Gyda Westvold Hansen was exactly a minute slower (15:31) and started her ski jumping campaign with a deficit of 15 points. Daniela Dejori (ITA) was third (-18.7 p), followed by Marte Leinan Lund (-19.5) and Stefaniya Nadymova (-20.5).
As in the first event, Canada’s Taylor Henrich was the best jumper of the field and with 88 metres and a point total of 100.3 points, she made up a lot of ground in the jumping round. He total score of 58.8 was not enough to endanger Geraghty-Moats, who had the third-best jump of the evening with 83 metres. She won the event clearly with total score of 84.6.
As Gyda Westvold Hansen did not start in the jumping event after a fall in the trial round and Stefaniya Nadymova was disqualified, two of the players for the podium ranks were out of contention. Henrich and Germany’s Jenny Nowak capitalised best and took the silver and bronze positions with 58.5 and 52.8 points. Daniela Dejori ended the competition on the fourth place, Marte Leinan Lund was fifth and Veronica Gianmoena sixth.
As on the previous day, also Jakob Lange was the fastest skier in the race one more time but he had to share that honour with Austria’s Paul Gerstgraser. Both completed the 10 km in 27:29, followed by Leif Torbjørn Næsvold who crossed the finish line one second later. Raffaele Buzzi (ITA) was third, +00:02 and Martin Hahn (GER) reached the finish line six seconds after the two winners. Lukas Danek closed the first fast group 17 seconds after the two winners and all athletes started their jumping events with minus points ranging from -4.2 (Danek) to -0.2 (Næsvold).
With the second best jump of the day (90.5 metres) and a point total of 123.8, however, Lange catapulted himself to the clear win. Raffaele Buzzi followed up with decent 83 metres (112.5 p.) to take the second place while Paul Gerstgraser only accumulated 108.9 points with his 85.5 metres. Norwegian Næsvold totalled at 107.4 points and the fourth position, while local hero Ben Loomis improved from the 11th position after the race to a final fifth position. Lukas Danek (CZE) was sixth, Rok Jelen (SLO) seventh, Sindre Ure Søtvik (NOR) eighth, Jan Vytrval (CZE) ninth and Martin Hahn (GER) tenth.
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