Athlete of the Week: Fabian Rießle (GER)

With the German dominance of the 2016/17 season still unbroken, it does not come as a big surprise that our current Athlete of the Week is a German again: Fabian Rießle. The current number three of the overall World Cup had a stellar weekend in Chaux-Neuve, which saw him collecting another second place and career victory number five.

To achieve these great results meant to play his trump cards in an impressive manner: solid jumping that put Rießle not too far away from the head of the field, his renowned strength on the cross-country track, including a finish that is hard to beat and an iron will:

„It was hard to lose the sprint yesterday but I made the mistake to do a lot of pace work. Today I tried to be at the third or fifth position in the group and so I had some power left at the end of the race“, Rießle explained at the press conference on Sunday. „I really really wanted this victory today. I thought to myself: 'I will not let anybody take this away from me!‘ It’s fantastic that it worked in the end. I am super happy and hope it will continue like this.“

Beating the competition in his own strong team also showed the 26-year-old’s ambitions towards the Nordic Combined TRIPLE and maybe also the World Championships in Seefeld.  „The Seefeld TRIPLE is one of the big goals of every Nordic Combined athlete. It will be hard to beat "Mr. Seefeld", Eric Frenzel, on the next weekend, but I will definitely try and hope for a good weekend in Seefeld“.

However the power play of the German team might continue on the following weekends, judging after his confident, gutsy performance in Chaux-Neuve Fabian Rießle will remain one of the big names to watch in this season.