Jarl Riiber strikes back in Val di Fiemme
Jan 15, 2021·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber returned to his winning ways at the beginning of the new year. The World Cup leader claimed the win of the first competition in Val di Fiemme with a controlled performance and an advantage of 8.4 seconds at the finish line. Finnish athlete Ilkka Herola sensationally raced to rank two and Vinzenz Geiger (GER) completed the podium on rank three, +9.8 seconds after Riiber.
With a fantastic jump of 106 metres, Jarl Riiber surprised onlookers after weaker jumps in the previous trainings and the PCR. Today, however, he lead the field with 144.3 points and managed to create a comfortable cushion of 40 seconds on runner-up Akito Watabe for himself.
Yesterday’s PCR winner Watabe in turn did not disappoint today either and jumped 102 metres. with 134.5 metres, he lead the pack of pursuers and had a 10-second buffer on Fabian Rießle. The German was delighted with 100.5 metres and an excellent third start position for the race, which put the fast skier on the shortlist of today’s podium candidates.
Young Austrian Johannes Lamparter continued to impress and was fourth (+0:56) and France’s Laurent Muhlethaler presented himself in excellent jumping shape as well on rank eight (+1:06). Other podium contenders were Germans Manuel Faißt, Eric Frenzel and of course last year’s Val di Fiemme winner Vinzenz Geiger. The started their races with delays of +1:06, +1:10 and +1:12.
The second group of fast pursuers consisted of Ilkka Herola and Jørgen Graabak, who both showed improvements on the hill and began their races +1:28 and +1:39 behind the leader.
In the race, Riiber was in full control and even if the soft and slow snow gave all the athletes an extra challenge today, the Norwegian cleverly administrated his advantage to reach the finish first and in full control of the pursuers.
Behind Riiber, a big group of pursuers formed around one minute behind the Norwegian: Fabian Rießle, Eric Frenzel, Manuel Faißt, Lukas Greiderer, Johannes Lamparter and Akito Watabe were very quickly joined by Vinzenz Geiger, Jens Lurås Oftebro and Ilkka Herola. Also Jørgen Graabak worked hard to close the gap and was with the group by the 3.8 km intermediate time.
The pursuers then proceeded to inch closer to Riiber. At the halfway point of the race, the advantage had shrunken to 50 seconds, one lap later, the pursuers were down to around 40 seconds. While Akito Watabe and Manuel Faißt were hanging on for dear life, the fight for the podium places was decided at the front of the pursuing group.
Eric Frenzel, Jørgen Graabak and Ilkka Herola got into good positions and Herola took his heart in his hands on the last long uphill and increased the tempo in an impressive fashion. None of the other athletes were fully able to follow and so Herola had a gap of several metres which allowed him to fight off any sprint attacks on the finish straight.
He claimed the second rank and the seventh podium result of his career. Behind him, Vinzenz Geiger proved once more that he his the strongest German athlete at the moment and took the third place, 1 second ahead of teammate Fabian Rießle. Eric Frenzel finished two seconds later.
Jørgen Graabak was sixth, Johannes Lamparter seventh, Akito Watabe eighth, Lukas Greiderer ninth and Jens Lurås Oftebro closed out the Top Ten.
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