The second day of the Nordic Combined TRIPLE in Seefeld is history and the competition couldn't be more exciting. Overall leader Eric Frenzel took today's win after one jump and 10 kilometres of cross-country skiing and crossed the finish line 26.4 seconds ahead of his closest adversary, teammate Johannes Rydzek who moved up on rank two in the TRIPLE ranking. The third rank went to Magnus Moan from Norway who finished 27.6 seconds after Frenzel.
In the ski jumping part, Eric Frenzel already made it crystal clear that he is in Seefeld to win the TRIPLE. The German set the longest jump of the day by far with his 110.5 metres and took away the pole position from Norwegian jumping sensation Haavard Klemetsen who jumped 106 metres. With a total of 136.3 points, Frenzel went out on the cross-country track 11 seconds before Klemetsen. Frenzel's teammate Johannes Rydzek followed 54 seconds later after a good jump of 100.5 metres and 122.8 points. Hot on Rydzek's heels was Norway's great cross-country skier Magnus Moan who started at exactly one minute behind Frenzel.
Tobias Haug and Tino Edelmann followed on intermediate ranks five and six, completing an excellent jumping day for the German team. Slovenia's Marjan Jelenko improved in the Top Ten TRIPLE rankings with a great jump of 106 metres which catapulted him to an intermediate eight position. In total, only three athletes started within one minute as yesterday's results were taken over to today but up to number 17, the athletes were within two minutes behind Frenzel.
In the race, Frenzel left the start first and crossed the finish line first without a moment of doubt in between. While strong skiers Magnus Moan and Johannes Rydzek who cleverly followed Moan made up about 40 seconds on the first two laps, they were not able to come any closer to Frenzel who was able go faster towards the end of the race. On the last uphill into the stadium, Rydzek was able to go past Moan who could not keep up on the home stretch anymore and lost his intermediate second place of yesterday. Behind them, Haavard Klemetsen once again skied a respectable race and claimed rank four, 48.1 seconds after Frenzel.
Jason Lamy Chappuis, Bryan Fletcher and Akito Watabe finished closely together at 56.5, 57.4 and 58 seconds behind the winner. The fastest cross-country time of the day went to Norway's Joergen Graabak who turned his frustration after a race day gone bad yesterday on the track and skied the 10 kilometres in 23:55.1. He improved from rank 42 to 20.
Only the Top 30 athletes of today go on to the big finale with 2 jumps and 15 kilometres of racing tomorrow. Victims of Day 2 of the TRIPLE were for example Bjorn Kircheisen (31st), Francois Braud (35th), Mario Seidl (39th) and Gasper Berlot (45th).
The big day when history is made and the very first TRIPLE winner crowned is coming up now. Tomorrow's ski jumping starts at 12:30, the 15 km race begins at 15:45.
