JWSC: Germany claims Team Gold in Whistler
Feb 02, 2023·Nordic Combined
With 5cm of fresh snow overnight and light snow falling throughout the day, it was a beautiful day for Day 5 of the 2023 FIS Nordic Junior/U23 World Ski Championships here in Whistler, BC. Today the Junior Men competed in the Nordic Combined Team event: one ski jump each followed by a 4x5km cross-country team relay. It was great to finally see the ski jump open for competition. The temperature today was 0 degrees celsius with light snowfall and periods of sunshine amidst the clouds.
Norway, Austria, and Germany came out the strongest in the Ski Jumping. Six jumpers cracked the 100 m distance mark, with Matic Garbajs of Slovenia achieving the farthest jump of 103.0 m. Norway started the Cross-Country relay with a 16 second advantage over Austria and Germany.
In the Cross-Country 4x5km Relay, Norway started with a 16 second advantage, followed closely by Austria and Germany. After a large gap, USA started next with a +1:00 minute disadvantage. Czechia and Italy followed closely behind at +1.04. Lastly, Slovenia and Poland pulled up the rear with +1.14 and +2:07 disadvantages respectively.
By the end of the first leg, Germany’s and Austria’s lead skiers had been able to catch up with the Norwegian and for the remainder of the race the top three nations skied close together. Then, on the last uphill section just before descending into the stadium, the German (Sommerfeldt) pulled away after a surprise attack to capture Gold and the Austrian (Reiter) and Norwegian (Ottesen) battled for 2nd place in a thrilling sprint finish.
Source: OC Whistler/Squamish
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