Hagen aims to extend winning run as Lamparter eyes Ramsau lift
Dec 17, 2024·Nordic Combined
A year after winning her first World Cup event in Ramsau, Norway star Ida Marie Hagen returns to the scene of her premier triumph this week aiming to maintain her dominant run as the Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined women’s and men’s seasons resume.
Hagen, the defending overall champion, celebrated her first World Cup victory in a Compact event on the Austrian plateau on 16 December 2023.
It proved to be a seismic moment in the 24-year-old’s rise to pre-eminence in the discipline, with Hagen winning eight of the remaining 11 competitions last season, including the last four.
She also won the opening two events in this season’s calendar in Lillehammer a fortnight ago, to make it six consecutive World Cup victories and nine in her last 10 events.
The only competition Hagen hasn’t won in the past 10 was a Mass Start in Otepää, Estonia, back in February, the one occasion compatriot Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR) has beaten her since Hagen’s first World Cup win.
After a Provisional Round Gundersen on Thursday, a first Mass Start of the season – the only format where the cross-country takes place before the ski jumping - will see their competitive rivalry resume on Friday, 20 December, before a Compact on the normal hill on Saturday.
Hansen, the two-time champion, finished second on her debut in Ramsau in 2020 – the first ever women’s World Cup competition - and has never finished outside the top two in the Alpine town, with four consecutive wins from 2021 to 2023 before Hagen’s breakthrough victory 12 months ago.
That was one of a series of ‘firsts’ for Ramsau, which has seen more different nations on the women’s podium than any other World Cup venue so far.
Anju Nakamura (JPN), with her first podium in 2020, Ema Volavsek, the first Slovenian to reach a podium after a second place in 2021, Lisa Hirner (AUT) – who earned her first World Cup runner-up finish in 2022 – and 17-year-old Minja Korhonen (FIN - below), who finished behind Hansen and Hagen for her first podium in 2023 – have all enjoyed notable results there.
The men will also have a Provisional Round Gundersen on Thursday before their own Mass Start competition on Friday precedes a traditional Gundersen on the HS98 normal hill on Saturday, 21 December.
Five-time champion Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR) – who claimed his 75th World Cup win in Lillehammer recently - currently leads the overall standings from a trio of Germans in Julian Schmid, Vinzenz Geiger and Johannes Rydzek.
But Austria’s Johannes Lamparter (below) will aim to confirm his return to something approaching top form at a venue where he won both competitions last season and also had a second place in 2022-23, the season he won the overall title.
The 23-year-old had a difficult off-season hampered by a knee issue, but after finishing third in the Gundersen and fourth in the Compact in Lillehammer, is likely to be a strong contender again on home snow.
“I took some self-confidence from getting on the podium and also it is getting better and better on the hill each day,” Lamparter said.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Ida Marie Hagen (NOR) took the first of her 11 World Cup victories in Ramsau 12 months ago on 16 December 2023.
The defending champion has won 11 of her last 14 World Cup events, including nine of the past 10 and the last six in a row.
Until Hagen’s first win a year ago, Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR) had won the last four women’s competitions in Ramsau.
The first ever women’s World Cup competition was held in Ramsau on 18 December 2020, when Hansen finished second on her World Cup debut.
Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR) has a record 75 World Cup wins among 102 podiums after a first and a third in Lillehammer.
Riiber has had five World Cup wins in Ramsau and only once not finished in the top two – a third place – at the venue over the last six years. He twice finished second last year.
Johannes Lamparter (AUT) won both the Mass Start and Compact competitions in Ramsau last December, and also had a second place there in 2022.
Julian Schmid (GER) has finished on the podium in four of the first five events this season, including three second-places. His last individual World Cup win was in February 2023.
)
)
