Junior World Champions 2020: Jenny Nowak (GER) & Jens Lurås Oftebro (NOR)
Mar 04, 2020·Nordic Combined
Nordic Combined has two new FIS Junior World Champions: German local hero Jenny Nowak delighted the home crowd and won the women’s title, while the men’s gold medal went to big favourite and World Cup number four Jens Lurås Oftebro from Norway.
In a windy competition round, Nowak had surprisingly jumped to the lead with a distance of 98 metres and 118.77 points and distanced favourite Gyda Westvold Hansen (95.5 m; 112.3 p.) to a delay of 26 seconds at the start line. France’s Lena Brocard was strong on the hill as well and claimed the third spot in the start grid with a jump of 90.5 metres (104.5 p.). She started +0:57 seconds after Nowak and together with a second German athlete, Maria Gerboth (+0:58).
Austrian Youth Olympic Games gold medallist Lisa Hirner, known as a strong ski jumper, was not satisfied with her 90.5 metre jump and started her race from position five, +1:07 behind Nowak and closely followed by Japan’s Sana Azegami (+1:09).
Even though Westvold Hansen was expected to close to the gap to Nowak soon, the German had a very strong day on the skinny skis and instead of being caught, the German used the manifold cheers of the spectators to fuel her on to extend her lead. By the halfway point of the race, her advantage had grown to +0:44 seconds and when she heard her coach tell her that she had +0:50 seconds of a lead on Westvold Hansen, she know that her home gold medal was secure.
A visibly happy and moved Nowak enjoyed her last metres of the race and finally crossed the finish line +45.2 seconds ahead of Westvold Hansen, who repeated her silver performance of Lahti 2019. Behind the first two athletes, five athletes fought for the bronze medal: Austria’s Lisa Hirner, France’s Lena Brocard, Marte Leinan Lund from Norway and Sana Azegami from Japan. Hirner had the most power left on the last uphill and conquered the bronze medal thanks to her improved cross-country performance this year.
Maria Gerboth was the unlucky fourth, like in Lahti, Marte Leinan Lund fifth, Sana Azegami sixth and Lena Brocard seventh. Last year’s gold and bronze medallists, Japan’s Ayane Miyazaki and Anju Nakamura finished eighth and ninth and Italy’s Annika Sieff conquered the last remaining Top Ten result.
In the men’s competition, Jens Lurås Oftebro was the clear favourite and he acted like the experienced World Cup athlete he is all the way. Even when he had to leave the bar three times due to the changing wind conditions, he still jumped to 104.5 metres and the clear lead by +0:52 seconds on runner-up, Japan’s Daimatsu Takehana.
In the race, Oftebro calmly skied his 10 km and crossed the finish line not unlike serial winner Jarl Magnus Riiber uses to do. A whopping one minute and 14 seconds separated Oftebro from runner-up Johannes Lamparter and the Norwegian even had time to go for a flag and celebrate his gold medal run.
Behind Oftebro, Lamparter was also skiing in a league of his own and also had almost a distance of one minute to the next athletes reaching the finish.
As in the women’s race, the bronze medal was hard fought for. Sebastian Østvold, Christian Frank and Slovenian Rok Jelen, who had started from position six soon found each other and skied much of the third and fourth laps together. Behind this pursuing trio, the French duo of Gael Blondeau and Matteo Baud made up ground together and even though Baud finally couldn’t follow his teammate, Blondeau closed the gap to the pursuers on the last lap.
While Sebastian Østvold could not match the speed of the pursuing group anymore and dropped back, the trio of Frank, Jelen and Blondeau entered the stadium together, with Germany’s Frank taking the lead. He was outsprinted, however, on the middle corridor of the final stretch, while his adversaries chose the left and right corridors.
The final decision for the third place had to be made in a finish photo and was a matter of centimetres. With the better-timed finish, Blondeau captured a acompetely unexpected bronze medal for France, while Jelen ended up on the unlucky fourth place. Christian Frank finished fifth, Stefan Rettenegger was sixth, Sebastian Østvold seventh, Matteo Baud eighth, Finland’s Atte Kettunen ninth and Italy’s Stefano Radovan closed out the Top Ten.
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