Graabak wins gold at thrilling Olympic large hill event

Team Norway faced a more than dramatic race at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing today, that ended in a double-victory for Joergen Graabak and Jens Luraas Oftebro.

In the afternoon, Jarl Magnus Riiber had shown a strong performance after returning from quarantine only one day ago. The overall World Cup second was in the lead after the Ski Jumping round on the Zhangjiakou National Ski Jumping Centre HS 140.

In winterly conditions the Norwegian jumped the furthest distance of the day with 142 meters (139.8 pts) in the afternoon at the HS 140 and took the lead. Therefore, he was the first one to start into the 10 km at the National Cross-Country Skiing Centre.

Rank 2 after jumping went to Kristjan Ilves from Estonia and Japanese Ryota Yamamoto, who both landed at 140 meters and collected a total of 128.7 points. They went into the challenging course 44 seconds after the Norwegian.

The performances of Riiber and Ilves were especially impressive, because both missed the first Olympic competition on the normal hill last week, due to Covid-19 infections and had just a couple of training jumps on the HS140. 
Another strong performance was shown by Manuel Faisst from Germany, who travelled to China delayed, after his team mates Eric Frenzel and Terence Weber both tested positive for Covid. 
Faisst jumped to 133 meters (128 pts) and took the 4th place in jumping, with a 47 second backlog on the leader from Norway. 
With Akito Watabe on rank 5 (135 m, 126.4 pts) a total of five athletes went into the race within the first minute.

Riiber started the race with a comfortable lead, not knowing that it would melt down after 2.5 km. The top favorite for the gold medal took the wrong lane in the stadium, ending up on the finish line instead of the looping track. 
Therefore, he had to turn around and ski back, which gave his pursuers the chance to catch up. 
After 3.5 km Akito Watabe took the lead, overtaking Riiber, who joined the group of Lamparter and Faisst.

After 8.5 km the Austrian was leading, but couldn't keep up on the last climb and had to give up. Lukas Greiderer came up from behind, while Riiber collapsed on the last climb and had to settle for 8th place (+39.8 sec) in the end.

In an exciting finish sprint, Graabak prevailed against his teammate Oftebro (+0.4 sec) and Watabe (+0.6 sec) from Japan who secured his 3. Olympic medal. Faisst (+3.3 sec) finished the race as the best German in a strong 4th place.

Intermediate Results: Men Individual Gundersen LH/10km SJ – Beijing, 15.2.22
Overall Results: Men Individual Gundersen LH/10km – Beijing, 15.2.22