COC-L: Tara Geraghty-Moats can’t stop winning
Jan 06, 2019·Nordic Combined
Tara Geraghty-Moats won also the second Ladies' Continental Cup event in Otepää. This time, the American crossed the finish line 23.5 seconds ahead of Austria's Lisa Hirner, who in turn beat Ayane Miyazaki (JPN) to rank three (+25.9).
Austria’s Lisa Hirner returned to the competition after receiving her jumping skis, which had been affected by the transportation troubles on the way to Otepää as well and won the jumping round with a beautiful jump of 93.5 metres. She jumped from one gate lower than the rest of the field and achieved a total of 125.6 points, which meant a head start of 32 seconds on runner-up Ayane Miyazaki from Japan.
Miyazaki showed 90.5 metres (117.6 p.) and started four seconds earlier than Silva Verbic from Slovenia (92.5 m; 116.5 p.). Gyda Westvold Gansen from Norway had a nice jump to 90.5 metres and started her race 54 seconds after the leader. They all had to have eyes on their backs as well as Continental Cup leader Tara Geragthy-Moats had the fifth starting position today and was poised to make up a lot of time in the 5 km race. With a start delay of one minute and six seconds, she was followed closely by Germany’s Jenny Nowak (+1:08). Fast Japanese skier Anju Nakamura showed a 78 metre jump that put her in position 19, two minutes and 50 seconds behind the leader.
The race turned out to be an exciting affair with Geraghty-Moats starting out fast and reducing her time disadvantage drastically immediately. By the 1.1 km point of the race, she had halved her time behind to 29.5 seconds and Ayane Miyazaki had also closed in on Hirner. The halfway point saw all three athletes close together and Hirner still in the lead by 2.5 seconds, followed by Geraghty Moats and Miyazaki at 7.6 seconds further behind.
While none of the two athletes were a match for the America, Miyazaki and Hirner battled all the way to the finish line with the Austrian having a strong comeback and claiming the second place, only 23.5 seconds behind Geraghty-Moats. Miyazaki finished five seconds later.
Behind the top three athletes, Gyda Westvold Hansen finally left Germany’s Maria Gerboth behind to claim position four, +1:11.6 behind the winner. Jenny Nowak claimed rank six and Japan’s Anju Nakamura powered to rank seven from rank 19. The rest of the Top Ten positions went to Veronica Gianmoena, Silva Verbic and Ringo Mijajima beat Ema Volavsek for the last Top Ten spot in a photo finish. Another photo finish had to decide ranks 15 and 16, with Norway’s Marte Leinan Lund having the better end over local hero Annemarii Bendi.
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