Germany with triple victory in Ruka
Nov 27, 2021·Nordic Combined
Germany took the podium at day 2 of the Ruka Tour 2021. Terence Weber, wo was already in the lead after the Ski Jumping round, won the race after a tight finish sprint against his team mates Eric Frenzel and Vinzenz Geiger.
The second day of the Ruka tour started already with a big surprise in the qualification.
Under clear blue skies and winter conditions of -15°C, top favorite Jarl Magnus Riiber was disqualified due to an irregular suit.
The Norwegian, who started with the yellow bib after his sovereign victory yesterday, will therefore not be part of the competitions today.
Instead, Terence Weber convinced the spectators in Ruka with the furthest jump of the day on 136.5 meters. The German collected 151.8 points and was the first one to go into the 10 km Cross-Country race this afternoon.
Mario Seidl from Austria who jumped to 133.5 meters (150.3 pts) took the second rank and had a 6 second backlog on the leader. A big surprise was Kristjan Ilves’ jump to 136 meters on the Rukatunturi HS142. The Estonian coped well with the cold conditions and placed 3rd with a total of 149.9 points and a 8 second backlog.
In total, seven athletes started into the race in the first 18 seconds, therefore a tight race could be expected from the beginning.
In the last lap, the already large leader group expanded to 15 athletes who had a chance of making the podium. On the last climb, Team Germany launched an attack that most of the pursuers could not withstand. In an exciting finish sprint Weber finally prevailed against his teammates Frenzel (+1.2 sec) and Geiger (+2.3 sec). The German won his first World Cup and took the lead in the overall standings and therefore also the first yellow bib of his career.
The fasted skiing time was performed by another German. Johannes Rydzek, who finished the race on rank 15 (+13.1 sec) reached the finish line in 24:42.1 minutes.
A total of 21 athletes finished the race in under 1 minute, which made the second Individual Gundersen of the season in Ruka particularly exciting for the many spectators and fans on the course.
