Riiber takes win #35, Lamparter returns to podium
Mar 20, 2021·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber took his 35th victory in Klingenthal today and secured his third consecutive crystal globe. In very challenging conditions on the hill, the Norwegian persevered with 143 metres and then, the seventh fastest time on the track was enough to win the race. In the end, he beat out a strong Akito Watabe in a finish line sprint by 0.7 seconds to take the victory. The Japanese took yet another second place and closed the gap to the World Cup runner-up Vinzenz Geiger by 42 points.
World Champion Johannes Lamparter beat out Manuel Faißt and Espen Andersen for rank three and returned to the World Cup podium after his triumph in Oberstdorf two weeks ago.
After no jumping at all was possible on Friday, the athletes spent a long day in the jumping hill today. After a training round, a Provisional Competition Round was started again but had to be cancelled after about half the jumpers, as the wind conditions grew worse again and the beginning of the competition time approached.
During the entire day, the conditions remained blustery and unstable, so that some athlete were more lucky than others in the total of three and a half rounds of ski jumping.
In the competition round, Jarl Magnus Riiber had a fantastic jump of 143 metres but only took a six-second lead on Akito Watabe who once again delighted ski jumping afficionados with his personal brand of clean, beautiful ski jumping. He landed at 138.5 metres but collected better style points than the Norwegians so that he was only lagging by 1.5 points.
Teammate Ryota Yamamoto took rank thee and set a new hill record of 149 metres. Due to the long distance, he of course had come difficulties in landing the jump and narrowly avoided having to touch the snow. The started his race 12 seconds after Riiber. Mario Seidl was fourth with beautiful 143 metres.
The next jumpers were a little further back, so that Laurent Muhlethaler, Manuel Faißt and Espen Andersen started with delays of 34, 40 and 45 seconds. Yet another gap opened to the next group of pursuers: Young Frenchman Marco Heinis, Johannes Lamparter, Jens Lurås Oftebro and Terence Weber started together between +1:18 and +1:24.
Akito Watabe and Jarl Magnus Riiber quickly closed ranks at the head of the field and never relinquished the first two positions during the entire race. The gap quickly grew from 30 seconds to over a minute at the end of the race.
A pursuing group also quickly banded together with Seidl, Yamamoto, Mühlethaler, Faißt and Andersen skiing together for large stretches of the race until Johannes Lamparter caught up with the group by the 7.4 km point of the race. Espen Andersen tried to lead the group from the front towards the end of the race but ultimately proved to be no match for World Champion Lamparter, who put himself in the lead of the group before the final S-turn and entered the stadium first. Behind him, Manuel Faißt beat Andersen for rank four.
A fast foursome consisting of Eric Frenzel, Fabian Rießle, Johannes Rydzek and Lukas Greiderer made up a lot of time on the track but only Johannes Rydzek managed to get inside the group skiing ahead and claimed rank six. Ryota Yamamoto finishes seventh, Mario Seidl was eight, Fabian Rießle ended his race on rank nine and Eric Frenzel was tenth.
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