An eventful week cumulating in a big Norges Cup
weekend in and around Trondheim is past Nordic Combined
Norway’s athletes of all ages. As customary in summer,
it was time for the annual „Kombinertskole“. About
30 young athletes from 10 years upwards met up at
Trondheim for multiple days of jumping and roller-ski
training as well as competitions.
First competition day at Knyken
On the past Friday, all of the young hopefuls and
also Norwegian A and B team members met up at Knyken
to battle out the winners of the first competition
day on Knyken’s K 68 hill. In the A class, jumping
expert Thomas Kjelbotn took the intermediate rank
one with a jump of 73.5 metres. He was followed
by Jan Schmid with 72 and Harald Riiber with 72.5
metres who set out to pursue Kjelbotn with time
behinds of 20 and 24 seconds.
On the 10-kilometre roller-ski track, it was the
time of the strong cross-country skiers with Magnus
Krog, Joergen Graabak and Magnus Moan storming around
the course to take the three podium positions. With
a time disadvantage of one minute and 35 seconds,
Krog showed an impressive performance and set the
fastest time on the track with 24:38 for the 10
kilometres. All three podium athletes finished within
one second of each other. Ranks four to six went
to Estonian brothers Han Hendrik and Kail Piho on
ranks four and six and Emil Vilhelmsen on rank five.
Return to Granaasen
On the following day, it was time to return to Trondheim
and take the battle to the HS 105 hill at Granaasen.
In the A-class, Jan Schmid showed off his good jumping
shape once more and claimed rank one after the jumping
part with 95 metres. Only Christian Ingebrigtsen
had a longer jump of 95.5 metres but was one point
behind Schmid in the total calculation. Thomas Kjelbotn
held rank three with a jump of 93 metres.
For the running race which the athletes of all classes
completed together, this meant a four second advantage
for Jan Schmid over Ingebrigsten and 16 seconds
over Kjelbotn. In contrast to the previous day,
Schmid was able to hold on to a top position this
time and finished second, 33 seconds after Olympic
Champion Joergen Graabak who set the fastest time
on the 10 km track (30:39) and made up six ranks
to his final victory. Rank three went to the previous
day’s winner Magnus Krog who finished 01:19 after
Graabak. Thomas Kjelbotn, Harald Riiber and Christian
Ingebrigtsen claimed ranks four to six.
