Laurent Mühlethaler and Léna Brocard win French nationals
Apr 07, 2021·Nordic Combined
Laurent Mühlethaler and Léna Brocard have taken the French national titles in Nordic Combined in Courchevel and Meribel last week. The ski jumping portions have been held in Courchevel, while the cross-country races took place in the neighbouring resort of Méribel.
The two dominant French athletes of the season, Laurent Mühlethaler and freshly-minted Rookie of the Year Matteo Baud battled for the win in the men’s category: in the end, only 7.4 seconds separated the two athletes. With 124 points, Baud had been the best jumper of the field but only claimed a head start of 6 seconds on Mühlethaler, who amassed 122.5 points.
Marco Heinis was third on the hill but with the eighth-fastest cross-country time, he fell back to the fourth place in the final ranking, since the fastest skier of the field, World Cup-proved Antoine Gerard came back from a one minute and eight seconds start delay to finally finish third, +35.7 seconds after the winner. The rest of the 17 athletes of the field finished two minutes and more after the winners.
Final Results (via NordicMag)
Seven athletes were on start in the women’s competition and here Léna Brocard took a clear win with an advantage of 54.2 seconds on runner-up Emma Tréand. Tréand had taken a lead on the hill with 67 points but the 22-second advantage melted in the 5 km race, since Tréand was only able to show the sixth best cross-country time. In the end, it was enough to secure a clear second place since third-placed Oriane Didier started with a delay of almost two minutes after the jumping part.
Final Results (via NordicMag)
