Bendi and Ilves golden at Estonian nationals 2017

Youth Cup overall winner Annemarii Bendi and Kristjan Ilves have taken the titles at the 2017 Nordic Combined Estonian nationals held in Otepää on the past weekend.

Jumping on the Tehvandi HS 100, Bendi and Ilves both laid the foundation for their successes in the jumping part already. Bendi claimed rank one with 66.5 metres and 58 points, which gave her a 54-second lead on runner-up Triinu Hausenberg. Meriliis Kuuk ranked third and had a three minute and four second disadvantage at the start of the cross-country race.

On the men’s side, Ilves showed 96.5 metres, the by far longest jump of the day in the Nordic Combined event. 127 points had Ilves starting one minute and 16 seconds ahead of Han Hendrik Piho at the halfway point of the competition. Robert Lee followed as third, one minute and 18 seconds behind.

Annemarii Bendi was able to extend her lead on the 5 kilometre track and finally reached the finish line one minute and 41 seconds ahead of her younger opponent Triinu Hausenberg. Meriliis Kuuk reached the finish four minutes and 30 seconds after Bendi.

Kristjan Ilves also won dominantly with the fastest cross-country time over the 10 km distance. In the end, two minutes and five second separated him from runner-up Han Hendrik Piho. Karl August Tiirma, Kail Piho and Andreas Ilves all overtook third placed youngster Robert Lee, so that he had to be satisfied with rank six in the end. Tiirmaa snatched the bronze rank, +3:13 after Ilves, Kail Piho ended up on position four, Andreas Ilves on five.