COC: Fletcher and Lange prevail in Park City
Mar 21, 2022·Nordic Combined
The FIS Nordic Combined Continental Cup will end its 2021/22 season with an eventful North America tour.
The men's final competitions are taking place at three locations in the USA and Canada.
Park City (USA) kicked things off on 12./13. March, with a Mass Start and an Individual Gundersen competition.
Taylor Fletcher, who ran his last World Cup race in Oslo (NOR) in early March and will retire after the season, was crowned winner in front of his home crowd.
The 31-year-old from Steamboat Springs had the fastest time in the mass start race, crossing the finish line first after 10km in 24:14.4 min.Second place went to German Jakob Lange (+25.5 sec), while David Mach (+57.5 sec) took third place.
In the subsequent Ski Jumping round, 86 meters (116.5 pts) was enough for the American to defend its lead. David Mach improved to second place (89 m, 111.8 pts), while Ben Loomis achieved the furthest distance of the day with 91.5 meters and completed the podium in third place with 107.8 points.
Loomis also proved his great jumping shape in the Individual Gundersen the next day and won the Ski Jumping competition on the HS 100 in Park City with 128.9 points.
With a lead of 16 seconds, he went in the cross-country course ahead of Manuel Einkemmer from Austria. Loomis' teammate Jared Shumate followed, 22 seconds back.
In an exciting race, Jakob Lange, who went into the track as 9th after Ski Jumping with a backlog of 1 minute, prevailed in the end.
The German showed a brilliant comeback and reached the finish line in a time of 24:28.8 min ahead of Einkemmer (+5.4 sec.) in second place. The third rank went to David Mach (+15.6 seconds) from Germany, who fought his way up to the podium from 11th place after Ski Jumping.
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