Team Germany has handed in a very good application
for a Sochi team medal by winning the last team
event before the season highlight in front of their
home crowd in Oberstdorf today. Eric Frenzel skied
the victory into the finish on the last leg of the
race, crossing the finish line 1.3 seconds before
Jason Lamy Chappuis from the second-placed team
of France. Team Austria claimed the third and remaining
podium rank.
Maxime Laheurte who opened the race for the French
team managed to hold into his lead for only the
first lap until a leading group of three athletes
formed with his pursuers from Germany and Austria.
The first three teams stayed together for more or
less the whole race, only interrupted by an attack
by Johannes Rydzek who went for it on the last uphill
of his leg and managed to create a 10 second gap
when he exchanged to Riessle. After the next uphill,
Sebastian Lacroix and Christoph Bieler had caught
up with Riessle again, so Rydzek's attempt proved
futile.
In the end, it was superstar Eric Frenzel who had
the best card in today's poker game of a race. He
attacked on the last uphill of the race and managed
to get away a few metres from Jason Lamy Chappuis
and Mario Stecher and these few metres secured the
German home victory.
With a good effort on the cross-country track, the
Norwegian team consisting of Ole Martin Storlien,
Jan Schmid, Thomas Kjelbotn and Truls Johansen claimed
the final fourth rank, finishing a whopping +02:16.7
after the winners. The Finnish team held onto a
fifth rank, Team Japan finished sixth.
One final Individual Gundersen event is on tomorrow
before the athletes go into a last well-deserved
short break before Sochi.
