Otepää (EST): Schmid sprints to 2. World Cup victory

Johannes Lamparter is the winner of today’s Individual competition of the Nordic Combined men in Otepää (EST).

Ryota Yamamoto took the lead after the Ski Jumping part on the Tehvandi HS97 this morning.
In freezing conditions the Japanese jumped to 95.5 meters and secured the victory with 124.1 points.

Rank 2 went to Franz-Josef Rehrl from Austria, who reached the furthest distance of the day with 101 meters (122.6 pts) and went into the course only 6 seconds behind the leader. 
Yesterday’s winner Johannes Lamparter from Austria reached 96.5 meters and collected 121.8 points, which brought him the third place 9 seconds behind Yamamoto.

The Japanese wasn’t able to defend his lead, which was taken over by Lamparter already in the first lap. After 2.5 km the leading group, consisting of the Austrian, Yamamoto (+0.3 sec), Rehrl (+0.7 sec) and Julian Schmid (+1.1 sec) was working together to keep the rest of the field at a distance. 
Lamparter took over all the leading work and kept them at a high speed, so that the distance to their pursuers grew to 38.3 sec after 7.5 km.

Schmid tried to pull away on the last downhill but couldn’t shake off the rest of the group, so it all came down to an exciting finish sprint. 
On the home stretch the German prevailed against Lamparter (+1.6 sec) who took the second place, while Rehrl and Yamamoto crossed the finish line in a photo finish (+1.8 sec). 
The Austrian was lucky and had his foot a couple of centimeters ahead of the Japanese, securing third place.

Results: Individual HS97/10km Men – SJ– 8.1.23 Otepää
Overall Results: Individual HS97/10km Men – 8.1.23 Otepää