Gyda Westvold Hansen & Stefan Rettenegger celebrate clear victories in Eisenerz
Jan 22, 2021·Nordic Combined
The Nordic Combined women kicked off the year 2021 with some long jumps at Continental Cup in Eisenerz. The longest distance went to Norway’s Gyda Westvold Hansen, who was able to land a distance of 110.0m (115.4p.). Due to losing some points because of a missing telemark this jump only brought her an advantage of 18 seconds ahead of Annika Sieff from Italy, who jumped 100.5m (111.0p.). Third after jumping was Svenja Würth with a jump to 95.0m (109.4p.) and a disadvantage of 24 seconds.
Anju Nakamura (95.0m, 108.4p.), Ayana Miyazaki (102.0m, 106.2p.) and Stefaniya Nadymova (102.5m, 105.8p.) completed the top six, with Nadymova being only 38 seconds behind Westvold Hansen.
After her superb jump, Gyda Westvold Hansen also impressed with the second-fastest cross-country skiing time and won the first event with a clear margin 23.4 seconds at the finish line after 5 km of racing.
Even though fast Japanese Anju Nakamura did her utmost to close the gap of 28 seconds, she only managed to shave about four second off the Norwegian’s advantage and had to be content with rank 2.
Her teammate Ayane Miyazaki claimed the third place. She started her race from rank five with a disadvantage of +0:37 but could not oppose the two stronger skiers in front and finally crossed the finish line +1:20.8 behind the winner.
She did, however, beat ski jumping runner-up Annika Sieff (ITA) and Germany’s Svenja Würth on the track and claimed the remaining spot on the podium with a 10-second-advantage on Sieff, who finished fourth. Mario Leinan Lund improved her ninth intermediate position to the final fifth rank, +1:43.7 behind her winning teammate and Yuna Kasai (JPN) finished sixth.
The remaining Top Ten spots went to Sigrun Kleinrath (AUT), Stefaniya Nadymova (RUS), Lisa Hirner (AUT) and Daniela Dejori (ITA).
The men were obviously followed by last week’s wind, what made the first part of the competition a bit tricky for everybody. With a jump to 101.0m (118.5p.) Austria’s Christian Deuschl was the man to chase today. He was followed by Stefan Rettenegger, who landed the longest jump of the day in the men’s competition (105.0m, 115.7p), which brought him only 11 seconds behind his teammate. In third place after jumping was David Mach, who was able to show a jump to 99.5m (111.5p). That jump was good enough for a disadvantage of 28 seconds. Harald Johnas Riiber (97.5m, 108.9p), Manuel Einkemmer (96.0m, 107.3p.) and Espen Andersen (97.5m, 107.0p) followed on rank four, five and six.
Fun fact: 16-year-old Jiri Konvalinka from Czech Republic was supposed to start with bib number five. After participating in both trial round and PCR, he then had to write an online math exam at school however and therefore wasn’t able to compete.
During the cross country race it didn’t very long until Rettenegger took over the lead from Deuschl and then skied a lonely race in front and celebrated a clear victory. Behind him however, already on the second lap Einkemmer, Andersen, Tiller, Riiber, Orter and Mach formed a large group and stayed together until the very last meters because nobody was able to set an attack on the hard course in Eisenerz. They all went together into the last downhill and in the end it was Andersen (+34.7 sec) and Orter (+35.3 sec), who were able to use all their experience to end the race on rank two and three. Simen Tiller, who had lost the photo finish against Orter (+35.3 sec), Manuel Einkemmer (+35.8 sec) and Harald Johnas Riiber (+37.0 sec) completed the top six in the end.
Just like one week ago in Klingenthal the fastest cross-country time (21:44.4) once again went to Lars Buraas, who was 38th after jumping with a disadvantage of 2:08 minutes. The 26-year-old Norwegian was able to ski the race together with Jakob Lange and ended up on rank 9. The overall leader from Germany was 10th.
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