Riiber and Watabe battle until the last centimetre in Seefeld
Jan 29, 2021·Nordic Combined
Akito Watabe and Jarl Magnus Riiber left the start line at the same time and also reached the finish line at the same time 5 km later. A finish photo had to decide the winner: Jarl Magnus Riiber won his 32nd World Cup by mere centimetres and denied Watabe his 20th triumph. Vinzenz Geiger overtook a completely exhausted Espen Bjørnstad on the last metres to claim rank 3, +45.0 seconds after the two leaders of the Nordic Combined TRIPLE standings.
After a long period with changing wind conditions, the jury unfortunately had to decide that the PCR, which was held earlier in the morning, would be used as a base for the cross-country race.
The result promised a very interesting 5 km race, however. Jarl Magnus Riiber and Akito Watabe both jumped to 109.5 metres and left the start line at exactly the same time with 138.9 and 138.8 points respectively. Espen Bjørnstad had the longest jump of the round with 111 metres and ranked third with 132.8 points and had 24 seconds to make up on the leading duo.
Johannes Lamparter was holding up the Austrian honour on rank four with 108 metres and a delay of 45 seconds and the start line and Red Bib Bearer Ilkka Herola had a good jump to rank 5 and a delay of 56 seconds and was definitely a danger for slower cross-country skiers ahead of him. A German squad of Vinzenz Geiger, Manuel Faißt, Fabian Rießle and Terence Weber followed on positions six to nine and all started together with delays of +1:04, +1:06 and +1:10.
Jarl Riiber and Akito Watabe worked together very well to keep the distance to their pursuers at a maximum and to take as much of an advantage as possible into the second and third day of the Nordic Combined TRIPLE. The alternated the lead and stayed together until the finish line where the victory could only be determined by a finish photo.
Behind the Top 2 athletes, Espen Bjørnstad tried his utmost to save his third rank but the gap to a group of pursuers shrank: the by 3.6 km point, the Norwegian had 14 seconds of an advantage but completely ran out of steam and was overtaken on the final straight by Vinzenz Geiger and Ilkka Herola, who had been a fast pursuing group together with Johannes Lamparter, Fabian Rießle and Eric Frenzel. All of these athletes finished between +45.0 and +48.3 seconds after the winner. Thomas Jöbstl from Austria and Manuel Faißt from Germany completed the Top Ten.
