UPDATE: The dominator returns home to Holmenkollen

Oslo, Holmenkollen: one of the most traditional venues of Nordic sports - and the home of World Cup winner 2019/20, Jarl Magnus Riiber, who also entered the history books with a stellar season and many records this year.

Towards the end of the season and after a his worst weekend on the World Cup so far, even this year’s dominator will be glad to return to home ground and the place of his first-ever World Cup victory in 2016. His star rose here, on the iconic HS 134 Holmenkollbakken and on the cross-country tracks in Oslo’s woods.

As an added bonus, each winner of a Nordic Combined event in Oslo receives the famous “Kings Cup” out of the hands of King Harald V or a member of the royal family. Usually handed out at national championships in a wide variety of different sports, Nordic Combined is an exception in which, upon the King's special request, also foreigners, namely the annual Holmenkollen winner can take home the King’s Cup.

Riiber has a collection of two, from his victory in 2016 and his win last year, but Japan’s Akito Watabe, who rose from the ashes of a bad season with his surprise coup in Lahti last weekend, actually has four of the precious cups already. If Riiber loves Holmenkollen, Watabe actually might love it even more with four victories and two podiums since 2012.

With the weather-related cancellation of Schonach (GER), prestigious Holmenkollen will now host the Nordic Combined athletes’ season finals once more and so, a victory in this final event on hallowed ground of Nordic sports means a lot.

In the running for a victory next to Riiber and Watabe are Jørgen Graabak, who finally wants to join the winner's club 2019/20, Vinzenz Geiger, who wants to repeat his two season wins or maybe even Ilkka Herola, who came in second in Oslo last year, just stepped onto the podium in Trondheim and showed a stable jumping shape in Lahti. Freshly-minted Junior World Champion Jens Lurås Oftebro is also back from Oberwiesenthal and maybe his brand-new gold medal will give him wings this weekend.

Not fighting for the victory or podiums anymore will be Austria’s Franz-Josef Rehrl, who ended his season early as a painful bruised rib, sustained in a race accident in Trondheim, still puts him out of commission.

The programme

Local time = CET, timetable may be subject to change.

Friday, 06.03.
09:00 Official training HS 134
11:00 Provisional Competition Round HS 134
14:00 Official training cross-country

Saturday, 07.03.
09:00 Trial Round HS 134
10:00 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN Competition Round HS 134
14:20 INDIVIDUAL GUNDERSEN 10 km cross-country race

HILL
Holmenkollen
HS 134

TRACK
Holmenkollen Blue Course
4 x 2.5 km loop
Height Difference: 56 m
Maximum Climb: 32 m
Total Climb: 360 m

LAST YEAR’S PODIUM
1. Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR), 2. Ilkka Herola (FIN), 3. Espen Bjørnstad (NOR)