Good jumping and smart tactics: Watabe earns third Lahti victory
Jan 24, 2021·Nordic Combined
Japan’s Akito Watabe has claimed his third individual World Cup win in Lahti and now holds 19 World Cup wins, the same number as Japanese legend Kenji Ogiwara. Watabe claimed a secure win, +10.8 seconds ahead of Jarl Magnus Riiber, who finally reached his first podium result in Lahti. The surprise of the day was young Japanese Ryota Yamamoto who earned his maiden podium in third, +25.1 seconds behind his teammate.
Yamamoto was the best jumper once again with a jump of 126 metres and 132.3 points. He claimed a narrow head start of one second on his teammate Akito Watabe who showed 129.5 metres (132.1 p.). Jarl Magnus Riiber had the longest jump of the day with 130 metres and 125.4 points and started his race from position three and a delay of 28 seconds.
The prevailing head wind caused many smiling faces among the jumpers, among them Laurent Muhlethaler who was among the best jumpers with 125.5 meters and rank five and his French teammates Antoine Gerard on rank 10 and Matteo Baud on rank 13. Lahti quadruple World Champion Johannes Rydzek was also overjoyed with a jump of 120.5 metres and position eight. With a start delay of one minute and six seconds he was also still in contention for a podium result.
The other strong skiers struggled a little more at the end of the round: Fabian Rießle ended up on position 12 (+1:20), Jørgen Graabak was 15th with +1:42, Vinzenz Geiger was 19th (+1:51) and Ilkka Herola was 20th (+1:53). The day ended especially bad for Eric Frenzel who had a bad jump to only 101.5 metres and ranked 42nd and Kasper Moen Flatla who had a dangerous-looking crash but fortunately remained without any injuries.
The Japanese leading duo of Watabe and Yamamoto remained untouched until the 5 km point of the race, when Jarl Magnus Riiber managed to close the gap and make up his missing 28 seconds. Akito Watabe’s tactical skills and his reading of the race were superb, however, and so the Japanese set a sharp attack directly on the following lap to not give the Norwegian any time to slow down the race, recover and attack him in the end part of the race.
Watabe took his heart in his hands and skied away from the other two athletes in a similar way that he won the individual event last year. Even though the remaining 5 kilometres were a long distance to go alone, the Japanese remained constantly fast and strong and Riiber had no chance to close the gap anymore, even if he dropped Ryota Yamamoto in the last part of the final lap.
With ranks one and two decided, everyone looked to the decision for the third place with suspense. Behind the leading trio, a trio of German athletes, Fabian Rießle, Terence Weber and Johannes Rydzek worked together to catch the leading group at a distance of about one minute. Even though the gap melted round by round it was still 36 seconds that separated Rydzek and Rießle from winner Watabe at the finish line.
Yamamoto, who had fallen seven seconds behind Riiber at the 8.6 km point of the race skied for his life. He managed to enter the stadium with several metres of advantage and in the end it was enough to keep a fast approaching Johannes Rydzek off his back by 3 seconds.
For Rydzek, however, this was the best result of the season at his favourite venue in Lahti. Fabian Rießle finished fifth, Vinzenz Geige skied from position 19 to six, Jørgen Graabak improved from 15 to 7 and Jens Lurås Oftebro from 17 to 8. Ilkka Herola won a photo finish for position nine against Terence Weber who completed the Top Ten.
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