Riiber celebrates 40th World Cup victory
Dec 11, 2021·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber is the winner of the todays FIS Nordic Combined World Cup, after the jury changed the format in the morning from Individual Gundersen to Mass Start.
Due to the difficult wind conditions, the Ski Jumping planned for this morning could not take place, so the jury changed the program at short notice.
Instead of the Individual Gundersen, a Mass Start took place in the Tehvandi stadium in Otepää.
Race Director Lasse Ottesen opened the first Mass Start race since Lillehammer 2018 with the traditional starting gun.
All athletes, led by the top 3 of the Overall World Cup, went together in the 10 km course.
Due to the short time gaps, there were continuous changes in lead at the front of the field. Ilkka Herola from Finland lead the large group after 1.2 km, followed by Eric Frenzel and Vinzenz Geiger.
The Germans took over most of the leading work and took the first three places at the 3.7 km time measurement.
Overall World Cup leader Jarl Magnus Riiber held back for most of the race and left the leading work to both Germany and Johannes Lamparter from Austria after 7.5 km.
The current Best Skier in the red bib, Ilkka Herola, led the group into the stadium on the last lap, closely followed by Jorgen Graabak from Norway and the German Fabian Rießle.
In the final sprint, which more than 10 athletes contested together, Riiber prevailed once again, closely followed by the sprint strong Vinzenz Geiger (+0.5 sec) and Joergen Graabak (+0.6 sec) in second and third.
A total of nine athletes crossed the finish line in less than 5 seconds, so a close fight for the podium in the Ski Jumping competition could be expected.
After a yesterdays Official Training and PCR had to be cancelled, a training round took place ahead of the competition round. In rainy conditions at the Tehvandi HS97 Jarl Magnus Riiber was the winner was once again in the end.
The Norwegian jumped the furthest distance of the day with 96 meters and secured his 40th World Cup victory.
The second place went to his team mate Espen Bjoernstad, who jumped to 93 meters and spend a long time in the leaderboard until Riiber took over.
Rank three was taken by Manuel Faißt from Germany, who already showed a strong performance on cross-country skis this morning and celebrated his first World Cup podium of the season.
Results: Mass Start HS97 Men – CC – 11.12.21 Otepää
Overall Results: Mass Start HS97 Men – 11.12.21 Otepää
