Norway takes Team Sprint revenge in Lahti
Jan 23, 2021·Nordic Combined
Team Norway I consisting of Jørgen Graabak and Jarl Magnus Riiber have taken revenge for their non-podium finish in Val di Fiemme last weekend and won the Team Sprint edition of Lahti in a high-suspense and tactical race through and through.
In the end, Jarl Magnus Riiber outsprinted the favoured Team Germany I (Rießle/Geiger) on the final metres of the race to finish 0.8 seconds earlier. Ryota Yamamoto and Akito Watabe secured an impressive third place for Team Japan I by finishing 2.5 seconds after the winners.
The ski jumping round ended with a surprise when Austrian veteran Berni Gruber, who didn’t compete in the past year as he had to undergo heart surgery, and Mario Seidl, who returned from two consecutive ACL-tears, jumped to the pole position. Jumps of 117.5 and 119.5 metres gave Team AUT I a total of 230.7 points and the intermediate lead, even though only by one second.
Behind them, Team “Skiclub SSV Geyer”, Eric Frenzel and Terence Weber, collected 230.1 points with jumps to 119 and 116 metres. Also the next two teams followed not far behind: Akito Watabe and Ryota Yamamoto had 228.9 points to show for and Fiemme-winners Fabian Rießle and Vinzenz Geiger totalled at 228.6 and so the two teams both left the start line only four seconds behind the leading duo.
The two Norwegian teams Graabak/Riiber and Oftebro/Bjørnstad were a little further back but with start delays of +0:27 and +0:30 not out of contention. Behind them, a little bigger gap opened before Team Austria II (Jöbstl/Klapfer) followed at +0:52. The Finnish local heroes Herola/Hirvonen ranked eighth with jumps of 111 and 113 metres. They had to make up one minute and nine seconds on the track.
As the first four teams went out on the track at basically the same time, the leading group stayed together for quite a while. Meanwhile, the two Norwegian teams were working together to close the 30 second gap to the front. On the fifth lap, the teams from Austria with Mario Seidl and Japan with Ryota Yamamoto were not able to hang on to the two German teams anymore and a gap of 9 seconds had opened up by the halfway point of the race. At the same time, Jørgen Graabak had closed the gap to those two teams, so that the race now consisted of two German teams leading and 10 seconds behind, four athletes from Norway, Japan and Austria skied together and tried to close the gap.
By 10.5 km it was clear that the fight for the top positions was over for Mario Seidl and Berni Gruber, as well as for Espen Bjørnstad and Jens Lurås Oftebro and they had dropped back to +17.7 and +21.3 seconds respectively. The two German teams still worked together in the lead, while the gap to Team Norway I had melted to 3 seconds only. Japan followed at +5.6 seconds.
On the following lap, Terence Weber dropped out of the race for the first positions and the second German team exchanged with a delay of +15.4 seconds. Japan and Norway were still grinding and following the Germans at a distance of 7 seconds. On the final lap for the first group, Jørgen Graabak put the foot down and closed the gap to Fabian Rießle. Ryota Yamamoto dropped back to +14.9 seconds and Eric Frenzel did his best to catch the Japanese but could ultimately not close the gap.
For the last 1.5 km, this meant that Jarl Magnus Riiber and Vinzenz Geiger had to outsmart each other and set themselves up in the best possible way for a finish line sprint. Riiber was aided by having the better material today. As the two were conserving energy and watching each other, Akito Watabe closed the gap to the top again, so that three teams entered the stadium at the same time. At the last uphill before turning into the stadium, Riiber took the lead and gained a few important metres which Geiger could not close on the last downhill and the final loop through the stadium.
In the end, a solid sprint had Riiber stealing the win for himself and Graabak, while Vinzenz Geiger and Fabian Rießle had to be satisfied with position two. The Japanese duo defended their third place and first-ever World Cup Team Sprint podium against Team Germany II: Frenzel/Weber finished 12 seconds after the winners, followed by Norway II (+13.3). Mario Seidl and Berni Gruber ended up on position six, while the local heroes Ilkka Herola and Eero Hirvonen were seventh.
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