Five-time overall World Cup No.1 Frenzel on coach life, Germany's rising stars and retiring Riiber: 'He made our sport so much better'

Between 2007 and 2023, Eric Frenzel (GER) won everything possible in Nordic Combined. In the past two seasons, however, the three-time Olympic champion with seven World titles to his name has got used to a new role, as a discipline coach for Germany.

"It's special and it's also really great. I like it very much," the 36-year-old said after watching his athlete Vinzenz Geiger (GER) claim a Compact bronze medal at the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim (NOR).

"It is a new situation, it is my second world year as a coach and this year it's a bit easier for me. It is a lot of fun to work with the guys and I am really nervous before the races – more than an athlete (is) – because I can't do anything about the race, the guys do their own job and I can only push them from the side. But it is really interesting and I like it."

Frenzel, from Annaberg-Buchholz in eastern Germany's Ore Mountains, was born into a Nordic Combined family where his father introduced him to the sport at a very early age and coached his first training group. He started skiing when he was two years old and made his first jumps aged six, setting off on a career that only Norwegian superstar Jarl Magnus Riiber has been able to match.

Frenzel claimed his first World Championships gold medal in Oslo (NOR), in 2011, and would win his last of 18 medals in Planica, Slovenia, 12 years later, becoming Team vice champion with Germany for the fifth time.

Now he hopes to help Germany's next generation to reach greatness and with Geiger at the top of the overall men's standings, Julian Schmid (GER) holding the fourth place and Nathalie Armbruster (GER) winning the women's Crystal Globe, Frenzel definitely has some talent to work with.

With Riiber bowing out of the sport, the throne in men's Nordic Combined is up for grabs and Frenzel hopes that his athletes can battle for it, having already branded Geiger's season an 'outstanding' one.

"We will see," Frenzel said.

"At the moment we have a really good team who do a really good job. They work really well together with us and with the whole team and that makes me, at the moment, really happy with that situation."

Nordic Combined legend Riiber, 27, who in January announced that he will retire after this season after being diagnosed with Crohn's disease, claimed three titles in Trondheim to take his total World Championships gold medal tally to 11 – and 15 medals in total – before quitting for good in Oslo last weekend. 

The Norwegian had been inspired by his idol Frenzel when he started a career that earned him the record for most individual World Cup race wins at 78. The German is full of praise for Riiber, who made his last Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined World Cup competition on Sunday.

"It was a very impressive career from Jarl. He has been one of the biggest in our sport and he has made our sport so much better," Frenzel said.

"He has shown which way we have to jump and how we have to jump, and he dominated for such a long time."

Riiber had been in the overall World Cup lead before the Oslo competitions and looked on course to bow out with a record sixth Crystal Globe, one more than five-time overall World Cup winner Frenzel. But the German, said he had never been nervous about losing a record to Riiber.

"It's normal. Records are there to be broken and I have no problems with that," Frenzel said.

If Frenzel was an inspiration to Riiber's career, the Norwegian superstar's quick rise to the top of Nordic Combined also had an influence in the way Frenzel and the Germany team trained.

"In my time we trained a lot more in the Cross-Country part. He showed us that we had to do more on the jumping part and to focus more on those things," Frenzel said.

"We worked with this for a long time and you need two or three years. You need time to change this with the young guys and it is a good process with the older ones. But now we are at a point where we can say that 'maybe it works'. We have to do more but we have a feeling that we are on the right way at the moment."

With the two greatest of all times having left the sport, Frenzel would not mind teaming up with Riiber, who has expressed interest in pursuing a coaching career.

"If he wants it, maybe why not," Frenzel said when asked whether Riiber would be welcome to join team Germany.

"It helps a lot when you have big athletes on your own team. They show you a different race or a different way of thinking and a lot of things. So I can wish him all the best with (coaching)."

As the World Cup season concludes in Lahti, Finland, on 20-22 March, Geiger, who took over Riiber's overall lead on Sunday, has a 287-point lead over the second best active athlete, Johannes Lamparter (AUT), and 289 over teammate Schmid.

With only 200 more points available, Geiger will be crowned overall champion for the first time in Lahti next weekend, barring an unlikely scenario where Riiber changes his mind about competing.

Click here to see the Nordic Combined World Cup schedule and results, and here for the World Cup standings.