Local hero Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek have
taken the win at the first competition of the summer.
A Team Sprint was on schedule in Oberwiesenthal
today and the Germans proved to be unbeatable with
a finish time of 29.31.9. 7.5 seconds later, Team
Austria I (Christoph Bieler/Bernhard Gruber) claimed
the silver rank, the third place on the podium went
to Team Germany II (Tino Edelmann/Bjo"rn Kircheisen)
who finished 12.4 seconds after the winners.
It was a close call after the ski jumping part on
Oberwiesenthal’s Fichtelbergschanze which ended
in a double German intermediate lead with Tino Edelmann
& Bjo"rn Kircheisen as the ones to top
the lists with two strong jumps of 102 an 102.5
metres. A total of 253.9 points meant a headstart
of only one second on Team Germany I with Rydzek/Frenzel.
Johannes Rydzek showed the longest jump of the day
with 104 metres. 5 seconds afterwards, the winners
of 2013, Christoph Bieler and Bernhard Gruber from
Austria went out on the track after two great jumps
of 102.5 and 101 metres and a total of 251.6. Austria
II with Marco Pichlmayer and Lukas Greiderer claimed
the intermediate fourth rank.
For the race, it meant a close starting order with
the first 13 teams within one minute of each other.
The three first teams stayed with each other as
a leading group for all of the race until a strong
Johannes Rydzek could make a decisive move on the
last part of the last lap and shake pursuers Austria
and Germany II. Austria’s Bernhard Gruber outsprinted
Tino Edelmann for rank three.
The fight was also on for the ranks four till six
in which Team Austria II proved to be the fastest.
Lukas Greiderer and Marco Pichlmayer fought Czech
Republic’s Tomas Portyk and Miroslav Dvorak and
prevailed with a finish time of +00:35 seconds after
the winners over Dvorak and Portyk who finished
+37.1. Team Norway I with Olympic Champion J?rgen
Graabak and Jan Schmid improved their intermediate
ninth rank to a final sixth position.