Germany shines at Ladies’ JWSC test event

Team Germany shone with a double victory at the Ladies’ Nordic Combined test event held at the FIS Nordic Junior World Championships in Kandersteg (SUI). Youth Cup serial winner Jenny Nowak came back to the two after two defeats in the inaugural Ladies’ Continental Cup events in Rena (NOR) earlier this month and claimed the victory, while teammate Anna Jäkle finished second. The podium was completed by Anastasia Goncharova from Russia.

Nowak returned to her old strength on the jumping hill and won the jumping round on the HS 74 hill with a jump of 71.5 metres (123.8 p.). Austria’s Lisa Hirner was second with 72 metres (121 p.) and followed Nowak on the track 11 seconds after the German. COC winner Ayane Miyazaki from Japan jumped to the third place, with 69 metres and had to make up 34 seconds on the 5 km distance.

Anna Jäkle started her race from position five and steadily gained ground on the athletes in front of her. While Jenny Nowak dominated the race with the second-fastest time, Jäkle closed the gap to Hirner and Miyazaki, who had started to ski together on the second lap. Also in this group was Germany’s Marie Nähring, who unfortunately took a wrong turn lying in second position, which lead to her disqualification.

On the last metres of the race, Russian Anastasia Gonchrova came flying from behind, having started from the 18th position. She caught Lisa Hirner and Ayane Miyazaki before the finish and stole the bronze medal with a stellar skiing performance of 15:07.9 for the 5 km. Hirner and Miyazaki had to be satisfied with the fourth and fifth position. Sophia Maurus completed a great German result on rank six, Yura Murakami was seventh, Hanna Midtsundstad eighth, Gyda Westfold Hansen ninth and Italy’s Annika Sieff tenth.

Continental Cup Coordinator Toni Guggemoos was beyond satisfied: "This was an amazing historical day for us here at the Junior World Championships in Kandersteg and for the whole discipline of Nordic Combined. The ladies' competition was exciting until the last minutes and we were impressed by the level of performance and the fighting spirit that was shown."

Nordic Combined Committee Chairman Horst Hüttel was present to see the event as well: "I watched the competition together with Swiss Olympic Champion Hippolyt Kempf and we were both really impressed. The entire organisation around the ladies was highly professional, the level of performance so close together that we had lots of fights for the positions and in general, the level on the jumping hill and track was high. You could have thought that the ladies have been doing this for ten years already. It was correct to start on this smaller hill for now but I have no doubts that many of these ladies can handle themselves on a K-90 normal hill. Today was an important step forward in the development of Ladies' Nordic Combined on the Junior World Championship level."