Jarl Magnus Riiber dominates also in Lillehammer
Dec 07, 2019·Nordic Combined
There is no stopping Jarl Magnus Riiber at the moment. After almost flawless jumping and and equally flawless cross-country race, Riiber finished 46.4 seconds ahead of teammate Jørgen Graabak. Graabak, in turn, fought off the attacks of two Germans, Fabian Rießle and Vinzenz Geiger, in a finish line sprint to claim the silver position. Rießle beat out Geiger by 0.1 seconds for rank three.
In the jumping round, Riiber shone with 143 metres (152.6 p) and already had a 30-second head start on teammate Jens Lurås Oftebro at the start line. The 19-year-old Norwegian also confirmed his performances from the Ruka weekend with a strong second place in the ski jumping round (134 m, 145.5 p.). With this jump, Oftebro eared a 40-second gap to third-ranked Martin Fritz (AUT). Fritz showed 132.5 metres and started his race +1:09 behind Riiber and ten second ahead of teammate Franz-Josef Rehrl (128.5; 132.8 p.).
Another twenty seconds later, a group of fast skiers started their races and made their ambitions for podium results known: Jørgen Graabak was number five with +1:38, Yoshito Watabe followed at +1:39 and Vinzenz Geiger held the German flag high on rank seven with +1:40. Teammates Eric Frenzel and Fabian Rießle started from ranks eleven and 13.
Riiber skied his usual controlled race at the head of the field and defended much of his advantage on his pursuers to claim another clear victory - even though the gap to his competitors was a little smaller than last week.
Behind Riiber, the race for the podium ranks was intense. Jens Lurås Oftebro defended his 40-second-lead valiantly for most of the race but on the last lap, the pursuers caught up with him. It was a big group consisting of strong skiers Vinzenz Geiger, Fabian Rießle, Ilkka Herola and Jørgen Graabak who closed the gap, even tough Graabak did his utmost not to lead the rest of the group to his younger teammate.
Once the group had swallowed up Lurås Oftebro, it was a no-holds-barred, every-man-for-himself fight for the two remaining podium spots. Said fight came down to a finish line sprint between Graabak and the two Germans in the end. Graabak turned out to be the strongest finisher of the day and claimed another 1-2 result for Norway, while Rießle and Geiger had to be satisfied with the positions three and four. Still, the day marked a small comeback of the German team with Eric Frenzel completing a good team result on rank seven.
Jens Lurås Oftebro finished on position five and fastest skier Ilkka Herola crossed the finish line as sixth, a good result for the Finn, who had still been struggling a bit more with his performances on home ground in Ruka. Martin Fritz was eighth, Samuel Costa claimed position nine for Italy and Thomas Jöbstl (AUT) closed out the Top Ten.
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