Riiber stays on course for TRIPLE win after Day 2
Feb 01, 2020·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber extended his TRIPLE lead to over a minute after the second of three competition days in Seefeld. The normal one jump and 10 km cross-country skiing Individual Gundersen format also had Jørgen Graabak and Vinzenz Geiger switching position on the podium with the better end for the Norwegian today. He finished 2.5 second ahead of Geiger.
Riiber continued on the jumping hill where he left off on the previous day and had the best jumping result of 104.5 metres and 138.6 points. Teammate Jens Lurås Oftebro claimed the second place after a disqualification of Riiber’s brother Harald, who had shown 110.5 metres but his suit did not comply with the regulations. So it was Oftebro, who managed to close his gap to Riiber the most with 105.5 metres and a total of 123.5 points, including -12.7 points from his result on the previous day.
To the surprise and delight of many German fans in the crowd, Eric Frenzel recovered on the jumping hill and set a fantastic jump of 106.5 metres, which had him climb to the third position after the jumping event. Akito Watabe was fourth with 102.5 metres and Espen Bjørnstad was not satisfied with his 100 metre jump which only carried him to the fifth position.
The other second-best jump of the day was set by Japanese Ryota Yamamoto. The Japanese showed 105.5 metres and claimed 136.2 points, the same amount of points as Oftebro, but with his -31 points from the previous day, the Japanese only took position 12 after the jumping part.
In the race, Riiber started with a full minute of head start on Oftebro and, as on the previous day, skied his race to try and put as many seconds as possible between himself and his pursuers. Oftebro also skied a courageous race but was caught by a big pursuing group consisting of Geiger, Graabak, Frenzel, Bjørnstad and Akito Watabe on the last lap.
In the end, Geiger and Graabak were the strongest duo, skied away from the rest of the group and Graabak lead the charge up the last uphill into the stadium to turn the tables on the German Geiger to claim the second place. Geiger had to be satisfied with rank three, Eric Frenzel finished fourth +1:17.8 behind Riiber, Espen Bjørnstad was fifth with +1:26.7 and Jens Lurås Oftbro fell back to the sixth position and finished +1:28.7 after Riiber. Akito Watabe, Ilkka Herola, Lukas Greiderer and Johannes Rydzek completed the Top Ten.
As only the Top 40 athletes will compete in tomorrow's events, the following athlete are not eligible to compete anymore: Jared Shumate (USA), Go Yamamoto (JPN), Leevi Mutru (FIN), Wille Karhumaa (FIN), Ernest Yahin (RUS) and Wojciech Marusarz (POL). Espen Andersen did not start the race, Harald Johnas Riiber (NOR) and Lukas Runggaldier (ITA) were disqualified.
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