Schonach all set for a merry little Christmas World Cup!
Almost a Christmas angel flying in Schonach! - NordicFocus
Schonach is gearing up for the most magical period of the year and this time, the cosy little town in Germany's picturesque Black Forest landscape will have the added excitement of the World's best Nordic Combined athletes stopping added to the glittering Christmas period.
The Black Forest is not drowning in snow but in contrast to the extreme difficulties with missing snow at the traditional date in early January in the last years, enough snow has fallen and the temperatures were low enough to produce much artificial snow: the world's elite in Nordic Combined will have perfect conditions to compete and hopefully a "Winter Wonderland"-look to go with the Christmas topic. "The hill is perfectly prepared, the cross-country track in the Wittenbach valley in good conditions", OC Chief Gunter Schuster says. With temperatures below zero in the last couple of nights, the track is frozen solid, so even the forecasted rain does not make the organisers sweat. Right on time for the competition weekend, the snow line is said to be coming down to Schonach again.
On schedule for the "merry little Christmas World Cup" are two Individual competitions. On Saturday, the long-established "Schwarzwaldpokal" is up for grabs again and the German organisers as well as the German team have put a German victory 26 years after Hubert Schwarz's victory in 1987 on their Christmas wishlists. And if Santa cannot help with fulfilling this wish, another can: Eric Frenzel. The German dominator of last season seems to have lost nothing of his prowess and continued to win his way through at least one competitions at every World Cup weekend so far.
In addition to Frenzel, his two young teammates Manuel Faisst and Tobias Haug, as well as Fabian Riessle, all born in the Black Forest have already shown that they are in good shape right now and competing on home soil will surely make their feet the extra little bit faster.
Together with fun-filled side events like the BIB draw on Friday and the Prize Giving Ceremony in the evening on Saturday, the stage is set for a glittering, exciting Christmas World Cup in Schonach! It only remains to be seen which athletes can give themselves a little pre-Christmas present.
