COC: Johansen lands a victory in Høydalsmo

After securing a strong 16th place in the last World Cup event in Ramsau am Dachstein, Austria, before Christmas, Norway’s Truls Johansen was back in action in the Norwegian home Continental Cup in Høydalsmo. The 25-year-old left a strong calling card for future World Cup starts by taking the victory, beating Italy’s Lukas Runggaldier by 1 second in a finish line sprint. Austrian Lukas Greiderer finished third, 2.8 second behind Johansen who extended his collection of Høydalsmo wins to three after 2013 and 2015.

In the jumping part of the event, the pole position was taken by Austrian Martin Fritz who had 88.5 metres and 133.3 point in his account at the intermediate point of the competition day. 85 metres and 129.6 points meant a time behind of 15 seconds for runner up Harald Riiber who started two seconds ahead of teammate Sinde Ure Søtvik (89.5 metres; 129.1 p.).

Johansen had 83 metres to show for and with a point total of 121.4 points, this gave him 48 seconds to make up on the leader. On the track, Martin Fritz managed to hold on to his lead for 2 of the 5 laps of 2 km but was caught by his pursuers on the third lap. In the end, he had to let strong skiers Johansen and Runggaldier, who had started the race from position 15, pass and also teammate Lukas Greiderer was too strong for Fritz in the end. The jumping winner had to be satisfied with the fourth rank in the end, Tomaz Druml completed a good Austrian team result on rank five. Norwegians Sindre Ure Søtvik and Jan Schmid finished on positions six and eight, Russia’s Viacheslav Barkov captured a remarkable seventh position and Manuel Maierhofer decided the battle for ninth for himself in a photo finish with Germany’s Michael Dünkel.