Eric Frenzel claimed the victory in the last Individual
Gundersen competition before the Olympic Winter
Games in Sochi. He beat Norway's Jan Schmid after
a sprint for the finish line by 0.5 seconds. They
were joined on the podium by Akito Watabe (JPN)
who was back on top after an influenza and finished
4.6 seconds afte Frenzel.
Jumping in Oberstdorf was not easy today, as the
wind conditions were changing constantly. Austria's
Christoph Bieler dealt with the conditions best,
jumping 133.5 metres for a point value of 136.6.
With the jump, he went into the cross-country part
11 seconds ahead of Pavel Churavy (CZE) who showed
131 metres (133.8 p.). In third position, Frenzel
set himself up for another individual victory. He
started into the race 14 seconds after Bieler.
The fourth place at intermediate time went to Watabe
(+0:32), behind him a group consisting of Willi
Denifl, Jan Schmid and Marjan Jelenko started closely
together at time disadvantages of 40, 41 and 42
seconds. Also within one minute of the leader were
Fabian Riessle who had a good jump of 127 metres
after his jumping yesterday still left room for
improvement. Norway's Thomas Kjelbotn had the same
time behind of 54 seconds with a jump of 122.5 in
very different conditions.
German jumping specialist Tobias Haug had difficulties
not to crash during his jump and landed safely but
only at 99.5 metres. Also not having a good jump
was World and Olympic champion Jason Lamy Chappuis
who jumped only 114 metres (rank 30 after jumping),
in contrast to his teammate and strong skier Sebastien
Lacroix who was happy about his 121.5 metre-jump
and an intermediate 17th rank with a time disadvantage
of +1:18.
The cross-country race looked differently from what
experts predicted with Eric Frenzel only 14 seconds
of time behind so far. This time, the German reacted
smartly to the slow conditions on the track and
did not break away from his followers to ski a lonely
race at the front but worked together in a bigger
leading group consisting of Bieler, Watabe, Schmid
and Denifl who found each other during the second
lap.
The group stayed together for the duration of more
or less the same race, being chased by a bigger
pursuing group with strong German skiers Bjo"rn
Kircheisen and Johannes Rydzek, Tino Edelmann, Mario
Stecher and Bernhard Gruber. This pursuing group
was not able to catch up with the leaders, so the
fight for the podium ranks was on between five athletes:
Frenzel, Schmid, Watabe, Bieler and Denifl. Schmid
attacked on the last uphill but was not able to
secure a leading position going into the downhill
again and so Frenzel had the better end, entering
the home stretch first and winning the sprint for
the finish line. Watabe beat out Denifl and Bieler
and added another podium to his collection.
Now a short break is on schedule for the Nordic
Combined athletes before the first Olympic competition
will take place at the 12th of February.
