Jarl Magnus Riiber takes back his crown
Dec 22, 2019·Nordic Combined
Jarl Riiber has taken back the first spot on the podium in Ramsau am Dachstein and won the second event with an advantage of 2.8 seconds on teammate Jørgen Graabak. Yesterday's winner Vinzenz Geiger (GER) returned to the podium with the third place, +4.1 seconds after Riiber and outsprinted Finland's Ilkka Herola by 0.1 second.
Jens Lurås Oftebro won the first jumping round of his career today when he beat teammate and yesterday’s jumping winner Espen Bjørnstad by 0.1 point. Oftebro showed 98 metres and accumulated 127.6 points, while Bjørnstad’s 97.5 metres were worth 127.5 points. The Norwegian duo opened the race and were joined by Jarl Magnus Riiber, who started his race from the third position and with a delay of six seconds after his 97-metre jump (126 p.).
The German team had reasons to smile after the jumping round as well with Manuel Faißt on a very good fourth position (97.5 m; 121.4 p) and a start delay of 25 seconds and Nordic Combined legend Eric Frenzel fully in the race for the podium positions on rank eight with a delay of +0:36 seconds. Other fast skiers with ambitions for the podium were Ilkka Herola (+0:50), Jørgen Graabak (+0:51), Vinzenz Geiger (+0:55). A second fast train of skiers started their races around the one minute mark: Fabian Rieße was 20th with a time disadvantage of +1:08, Alessandro Pittin started his race from position 22 at +1:15 and Thomas Jöbstl was 23rd with +1:19.
For the Austrian local heroes, Lukas Greiderer was in the most promising position with rank six and 29 seconds of time behind, Franz-Josef Rehrl was seventh with 94.5 metres and 30 seconds of disadvantage.
The Norwegian trio began their race together when Jarl Magnus Riiber had closed the gap to his two compatriots at the first intermediate timing point. Working together Riiber, Oftebro and Bjørnstad managed to stay together and ahead of the rest of the field until the third lap when Bjørnstad was not able to match the speed of his two teammates anymore.
At the same time, a group of fast pursuers were gunning for the leading trio and slowly closing the gap. Once more, Jørgen Graabak was faced with the conundrum of wanting to claim a podium result but not to help Ilkka Herola, Eric Frenzel, Vinzenz Geiger and Manuel Faißt catch up with his teammates. At the 8.2 km point, however, the gap had melted to five seconds only and Greaabak, as well as Riiber decided to go for it.
While Riiber accelerated and left the pursuing group behind, Graabak set himself up at the front of the group and was able to claim the second place without having to face any further attacks. Behind him, Vinzenz Geiger and Ilkka Herola sprinted for the remaining spot on the podium and once again, Geiger's irresistible sprint saved the day for the German. Lukas Greiderer took a respectable fifth position, Jens Lurås Oftebro, Eric Frenzel, Manuel Faißt, Espen Bjørnstad and Fabian Rießle completed the Top Ten.
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