Hafner, Nowak and Kleinrath victorious at OPA Alpencup in Klingenthal
Oct 22, 2020·Nordic Combined45 men and 29 women were on start for the first Alpencup event of the summer in Klingenthal. Austrian Fabian Hafner shone in the men’s field and won both, the 10 and 5 km events, while Germany’s Jenny Nowak and Austria’s Sigrun Kleinrath shared the women’s wins.
Saturday, 17th of October had the men starting in a 10 km Individual Gundersen event, while the women competed on their customary 5 km and a shorter 2.5 km distance.
France’s Marco Heinis was the best jumper on the field on the HS 85 Vogtlandschanze and jumped to 82.5 metres. With 123 points, he lead the field with a nine second advantage on Hafner, who showed 83 metres (121.1 p.). Christian Frank (GER) was third with 82.5 metres and 116.1 points. He left the start line of the race +0:29 seconds after Heinis.
Heinis and Hafner skied together for parts of the race but in the finish, 11.9 seconds separated the two with the Austrian securing the victory. +0:33 seconds after Hafner, the fastest skier of the field, teammate Severin Reiter crossed the finish line to take third.
Jenny Nowak was the best jumper in the women’s field and claimed the pole position with a jump of 78,5 metres (110 p.). She had a head start of 24 seconds on Lisa Hirner, who in turn lead teammate Sigrun Kleinrath by 14 seconds after a 75.5 metre jump (104.1 p.).
In the race, Hirner managed to close the gap to Nowak by about 4 seconds but the German still celebrated a relatively secure victory with an advantage of 19.8 seconds at the finish line. Sigrun Kleinrath held the third place and finished 33.4 seconds after the winner. The fastest skiing time came from Emilia Görlich who improved her intermediate position 13 to the final 5th rank.
Ski Jumping Results
Final Results
On Sunday, Heinis lead the men’s result list once more with 83 metres (114.6 p.) but this time, Fabian Hafner was only fourth at the start of the race and had to make up a gap of 17 seconds. Christian Frank and Lukas Schönberger took starting positions two and three in the race.
The shorter 5 km distance gave more athletes the chance to fight for the podium and so the gaps between the athletes at the finish line were minimal. Hafner sprinted to victory va 1.5 seconds, beating out Florian Kolb for the win. Marco Heinis claimed rank three and finished +1.9 seconds after the winner, Lukas Schönberger crossed the finish line one second later to take fifth.
Over on the women’s side, this time it was Kleinrath who set the top jump of the day: 83.6 metres and 104.6 points gave her a 16-second head start on Jenny Nowak. Fellow Austrian Annalena Slamik was third with 82.9 metres.
In the shorter 2.5 km race, Kleinrath managed to hold on to he advantage, even though she only had the 5th fastest racing time. In the end, she finished 6.9 seconds ahead of Nowak. Lisa Hirner was the fastest athlete on track and wrestled the third place out of the grasp of teammate Annalena Slamik. Hirner finished 13.3 seconds after Kleinrath and Slamik completed a very good result for the Austrian Ski Association 42.6 seconds later with rank four.