3rd Ruka Tour title for Riiber
Nov 28, 2021·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber is not only the winner of todays Individual Gundersen in northern Finland, but also champion of the Ruka Tour for the 3rd time in a row.
Before, the third and last day of the Ruka tour started with a cancellation. The third day on the Rukatunturi HS142 began at -19°C, as on the previous days, with extreme temperatures for the athletes.
After the qualification, which could be carried out without interruptions, the wind picked up.
The jury initially interrupted the competition after 41 athletes, and had to make the decision to cancel the Ski Jumping round. For this reason, Thursday's PCR was used for today's competition.
Following his victory on Thursday, Johannes Lamparter was the first one to start into the 10 km Cross-Country race this afternoon. The Austrian won the Provisional Competition Round with a jump of 140 meters and collected 154.7 points. His head start over teammate Mario Seidl was 6 seconds (142 m, 153.2 pts).
The third place in the PCR was taken by Ruka day 1 winner Jarl Magnus Riiber with 141 m (148.8 points). The Norwegian, who was disqualified yesterday due to an irregular suit, started 14 seconds after Lamparter.
Only 8 seconds ahead of Riiber, Seidl was caught quickly and couldn’t keep up with the high pace of the Norwegian. The Austrian fell back after 5 km, while Lamparter and Riiber formed a leading group, already 13 seconds ahead.
After 6.1 km Seidl was also caught by the following pursuers and fell back on the 4th rank behind Jens Luras Oftebro, who had a 28 second backlog on the leaders at the time.
On the last uphill, Riiber started an attack, that Lamparter, who, in contrast to Riiber, already had the 10km of yesterday in his legs, could not withstand.
On the last few meters of the race, last season's overall winner had expanded his lead to 12.4 seconds when crossing the finish line.
Meanwhile, the fight for third place was much more exciting. Jens Luras Oftebro and yesterday's winner Terence Weber from Germany delivered an exciting finish sprint, which the Norwegian (+33 sec) won in the end.
The fastest skier of the day and new owner of the red bib as Best Skier was Ilkka Herola from Finland. With a time of 24:09.4 min he was able to improve from 19th place after Ski Jumping to 10th place after the race.
The overall victory of the Ruka Tour goes to Jarl Magnus Riiber for the 3rd time in a row. The Norwegian is therefore again the overall World Cup leader and will be wearing the yellow bib next weekend in Lillehammer / Norway.
