COC: Maiden win for Nakamura, Lange wins Mass Start
Feb 22, 2020·Nordic Combined
For the very first time Eisenerz (AUT) hosted a Continental Cup competition for both men and women this weekend but because of too much wind however, the originally planned Individual competitions on Friday had to be changed into a Mass Start with the ski jumping part taking place on Saturday morning.
Eisenerz did not only celebrate a premiere by hosting a women’s event, but also set a new record in terms of the number of female participants: 34 women were fighting for the spot on top of the podium.
In the end it was Japan’s Anju Nakamura, who set her very first Continental Cup victory in the Women’s event. A narrow margin of 0.4 points separated the Lahti 2019 FIS Nordic Junior World Championship bronze medalist from runner-up and serial winner Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA).
In the cross-country part Geraghty-Moats was the one, who took the lead right from the start, followed by overall leader Marte Leinan Lund. However, it didn’t take very long until Nakamura made her way to the top and was able to keep up with Geraghty-Moats. On the challenging course the two of them were able to open a gap to the rest of the field and stayed together throughout the race.
On the last uphill Nakamura was able to put important seconds between herself and the American and to celebrate a win in the cross country part. Geraghty-Moats followed with a disadvantage of 23 seconds, rank three went to Marte Leinan Lund with a disadvantage of 33 seconds. Strong cross-country skier Hanna Midtsundstad, Mari Leinan Lund (both 46 seconds) and hometown hero Lisa Hirner (01:06 minutes) completed the top six.
With Nakamura winning the race by 23 seconds, the Japanese had an advantage of 5.7 points on the American before the jumping round. Nakamura's jump of 94.5 metres were just enough to take the win with 103.9 points in the end. Geraghty-Moats jumped to 96 metres but was not able to close the gap to Nakamura fully and finished with 103.5 points. Youth Olympic Games gold medallist Lisa Hirner from Austria finished third with a total of 101.8 points. Hirner showed 99.5 metres on the hill in Eisenerz. The longest jump of the day came from Norway’s Gyda Westvold Hansen who jumped to 101.5 metres and rank four.
Mari Leinan Lund (NOR), reigning Junior World Champion Ayana Miyazaki (JPN) and Sigrun Kleinrath (AUT) finishes fifth, sixth and seventh and the Top Ten were completed by Marte Leinan Lund (NOR), Yuna Kasai (JPN) and Stefaniya Nadymova (RUS).
The men’s mass start race was led by Jakob Lange from Germany and Lars Buraas from Norway, who showed why it’s mostly the two of them, ending up with the fastest cross-country times. The duo stayed together throughout the whole race, ending it with a finish sprint. In the end, Buraas was the winner of the cross-country race, just one second ahead of Lange.
Behind these two there were a lot of changes of positions. While Raffaele Buzzi from Italy looked like the clear third-placed athlete for a very long time, he was not able to keep up his high speed in the last lap and ended up on 8th place. With Lukas Runggaldier, however, it was another Italian, who showed an excellent cross-country performance that brought him rank three; 51 seconds behind Buraas. Rank four went to Fabio Obermeyr (+1:00 minute behind), fifth was Simen Tiller (+1:01 minutes behind), rank six went to Aleksander Skoglund (+1:12 minutes behind).
Lange then proceeded to take the win of the event with a jump of 97.5 metres (117 points in total), extending his Continental Cup merit list to include another victory today.
The best jump of the day was set by Norway’s Simen Tiller. 102.5 metres had the Norwegian climb to the silver position from rank five after the race. He claimed 114.2 points in total. The third place went to Austria’s Youth Olympic Champion Stefan Rettenegger. He improved from position 10 after the race to the third place with a jump of 99.5 metres and claimed 96.9 points in total.
Manuel Einkemmer (AUT), Lukas Runggaldier (ITA) and Aleksander Skoglund (NOR) claimed positions four to six with 95.2, 93.5 and 93.2 points, the rest of the Top Ten positions went to Germany’s Wendelin Thannheimer, Arttu Mäkiaho (FIN), race winner Lars Buraas and Thomas Rettenegger (AUT).
