FIS Youth Cup action for Nordic Combined youngsters
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
85 starters from 12 nations had the first FIS Youth Cup competition action of the summer in Oberstdorf where the first two events of the tour took place on the past weekend. 40 girls and 45 boys started in three different categories and had one Individual Gundersen competition and a Sprint event including a cross-country run each.
FIS Youth Coordinator Uwe Mühln: “Even though we were not able to include the Youth II boys category this year for operational reasons, the attendance of the Youth Cup in Oberstdorf was still very strong. The number and quality of the participating girls is continually rising, so that we almost had gender parity this year with 40 girls and 45 boys taking part. We are very happy with this development and look forward towards the future.”
In the Youth I Girls category, Germany’s Cindy Haasch collected two victories, in the Individual Gundersen event that featured 4 km of roller-skiing and in the Sprint event that had a 1.3 km cross-country run for the girls. Slovenia’s Nika Prevc holds the second place in the overall standings after a second and a third place and Trine Göpfert is third after reaching rank two in the sprint and rank five in the Gundersen event.
Slovenia’s Ema Volavsek proved to be the strongest athlete in the older girls’ category (Youth II). With a second place in the Gundersen event and the win in the Sprint cross-country run, she leads the overall standings after the Oberstdorf weekend with 180 points, 30 points ahead of Germany’s Anna Jäkle, who won the Gundersen event and was third in the sprint race. Compatriot Emilia Görlich is third with 110 points after a fourth and third place finish, beating out Italian Annika Sieff by just one point.
Arsi Tietavainen from Finland celebrated a double victory in the Youth I Boys category and took the lead in the Youth Cup standings with 200 points. Austrian Severin Reiter stood on the second step of the podium twice and follows with 160 points, while Norway’s Eidar Johan Strøm finished third on the first day and ended his weekend on the fourth place after one jump and a 3.75 km cross-country run.
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