Athlete of the Week: Fabian Rießle (GER)

With the highly entertaining mix of nations in the results of this season’s Nordic Combined events, the feeling of rising like a phoenix from the ashes is not uncommon in the World Cup these days. Athletes like 34-year-old Jan Schmid, who wears the yellow bib for the first time in his career or Italy’s Alessandro Pittin, who returned to the podium after two years are only two examples. Our Athlete of the Week, German Fabian “Rio” Rießle is another one.

Going from an overall fourth place in the World Cup season 2016/17 to a 24th place, 11th place and 21st place plus not making it through the qualification in Ruka on one day can’t have been a lot of fun for the 27-year-old from St. Maergen.

The relief was correspondingly palpable when Rießle’s jumps started to work again in Ramsau am Dachstein. Always one for the fast skiing times and finish line sprints, he still had to concede defeat to teammate Eric Frenzel on Saturday, but on Sunday, Rießle’s time had come: finally a victory in a finish line sprint, against fastest skier and red bib bearer Alessandro Pittin of all people, and so, Rießle’s sixth World Cup victory became reality.

His trademark good mood was back and his wide smile flashed again when he returned to a place he had gotten used to: the podium. 10 times in the last season alone did Rießle climb up these steps in the past season, now his count for 2017/18 is up to two. If his and Eric Frenzel’s victory mark the beginning of another stellar period for the German team in the year 2018 remains to be seen, but as the Athlete of the Week remarked in the press conference: “For me, it could go on like this!”

As the cherry on top, Rießle travelled out of Ramsau and to the "Sportler des Jahres" Awards in Baden-Baden, Germany in a private jet. The reason: the Nordic Combined team reached the third place in the category "Team of the Year". Definitely not the worst way to end the year 2017.