Johannes Rydzek proved to be unbeatable this summer
and won all five competitions of the Summer Grand
Prix 2014, including today’s Final Individual Gundersen
with 2 rounds of jumping and 15 kilometres of roller-skiing.
With a perfect score of 400 points, he also took
the overall ahead of teammates Eric Frenzel and
Bjo"rn Kircheisen.
In the 15 kilometre race, Rydzek finished with a
huge margin on one minute and 33 seconds ahead of
Eric Frenzel and 1:41 ahead of Austrian youngster
Lukas Greiderer who finished with a career best
third rank.
One part of Rydzek’s strength was based on a new-found
great jumping shape. Rydzek ruled supreme in both
rounds with jumps of 135 and 136.5 metres, giving
him 267 points and a big headstart of 49 seconds
on Austria’s Christoph Bieler who accumulated 254.8
points. Eric Frenzel ranked third at the intermediate
point with 249.3 points and a time behind of +1:11.
Young Austrian Lukas Greiderer held onto a fourth
rank after the jumping with 12.9.5 and 129 metres.
He started +1:24 after Rydzek. Also in the Top Ten
were Finland’s Ilkka Herola, Bjo"rn Kircheisen,
Maxime Laheurte, Marjan Jelenko, Jason Lamy Chappuis
and Miroslav Dvorak.
In the race, Rydzek was never in any danger to lose
his pole position and could enjoy the 15 kilometres
taking him to his fifth victory in the fifth competition
of the summer. The fight for the places two and
three was on, however, between Rydzek’s teammate
Eric Frenzel who overtook Christoph Bieler at the
beginning of the race. Young Austrian Lukas Greiderer
showed a strong performance, caught up to Frenzel
and held onto the World and Olympic champion until
the end of the race. He secured his first ever podium
finish on World Cup or Summer Gran Prix level with
rank three.
Jason Lamy Chappuis ended up on rank four, followed
by Miroslav Dvorak, Marjan Jelenko, Harald Lemmerer,
Mario Seidl, Bjo"rn Kircheisen and Bernhard
Gruber, making this into a very successful day for
the Austrian team.
