OPA: Vermeulen and Welde win in Kranj
Aug 31, 2018·Nordic Combined
Two Alpencup Individual Gundersen events were on schedule in Kranj, Slowenia on the past weekend and the Mika Vermeulen (AUT) and Jonas Welde (GER) were the happy winners.
Vermeulen bagged his victory in the 10 km event on Saturday, beating our France’s Theo Rochat by 14 seconds. The third place went to Italy’s Aaron Kostner, who finished 14.5 seconds behind Vermeulen.
The jumping part of the event had German Julian Ketterer in the lead after a jump of 110.5 metres on Kranj’s HS109 hill. 134.4 points gave him a 13 second head start on Austria’s Christian Deuschl (112 m; 131.1 p.). Daniel Rieder held the third intermediate position with 111.5 metres and 130.2 points. He started with a delay of 17 seconds in the cross-country race. In typical Vermeulen-manner the future winner was further back in the result list with only 100 metres and one minute and 28 seconds to make up.
This proved to be no problem for the fastest skier of the field who needed 23:52.3 to complete the 10 kilometres and pass 26 other athletes on his way. Theo Rochat showed a similar performance with the second best cross-country time and an improvement from rank 22 to 2. Aaron Kostner improved a sixth position after the jump into the final bronze rank.
The 5 km event had Jonas Welde claim his maiden Alpencup win with a 7 second advantage on Slovenia’s Rok Jelen at the finish line. France’s Edgar Vallet claimed the third place, finishing 19 seconds behind Welde.
Julian Ketterer claimed the jumping win again, this time with 102 metres and a point total of 117.5, which put him three seconds ahead of Jelen at the start line. Jonas Welde was third (102 m; 116.6 p.) with only four seconds to make up on the 5 km track.
Aaron Kostner had the fastest 5 km time (11:03.9) but the Italian only improved from rank 22 to the unlucky fourth place. In the end, Jonas Welde proved to the strongest racer of the top jumpers and bested Jelen for the victory, Edgar Vallet moved up from the fifth place to grab bronze. Jumping winner Ketterer finished as eleventh.
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