Riiber celebrates "Super Sunday" in Trondheim
Feb 23, 2020·Nordic Combined
Jarl Magnus Riiber made it into the Nordic Combined history books on many counts with this second of two Individual Gundersen competitions in Trondheim. With his 13th season win, he broke Hannu Manninen’s record from the 2005/06 season and now has the chance to increase this margin until the end of the season in Schonach in three weeks.
Today’s victory increased his numbers of wins to 26, which also meant that Riiber is now the most successful Norwegian athlete in the Nordic Combined World Cup together with legend Bjarte Engen Vik, who also holds 26 victories. Last but not least, Riiber also clinched the 2019/20 overall victory and his second crystal globe today.
Riiber showed a flawless Nordic Combined performance once again and finished 29.4 seconds ahead of teammate Jens Lurås Oftebro. The Norwegian team delighted the home crowd with a quadruple victory with local heroes Espen Bjørnstad and Jørgen Graabak completing a stellar team result by finishing at +35.5 and +54.7 seconds after Riiber.
Jarl Magnus Riiber claimed his usual spot at the head of the field after the jumping part with 137 metres and 138.1 points but Austria’s Martin Fritz surprised with a very good ski jump (138.5 m; 131.8 p.) and claimed position two with a delay of +0:25 seconds at the start line. Local hero Espen Bjørnstad was third with 136.5 metres and 130.8 points and started 29 seconds behind Riiber.
Good jumpers Jens Lurås Oftebro, Terence Weber, Akito Watabe and Manuel Faißt claimed starting positions four to seven and started with delays between +0:45 and +1:10. With young gun Lars Ivar Skaarset and Go and Ryota Yamamoto completing the jumping top ten, the first of the fast skiers was local hero Jørgen Graabak. He showed 130 metres and with 115.5 points, he started his race +1:30 behind his teammate.
Eric Frenzel was hot on his heels on position 12 and a start time of +1:32, Magnus Krog had +1:37 and Vinzenz Geiger +1:52.
Much like yesterday, Riiber skied a lonely race in the lead and was above the fights raging for the top positions in the rest of the field. Starting out by extending his lead to 41 seconds on Espen Bjørnstad on the first lap, he then steadily stayed 48 seconds ahead of the field until the last lap, when he took some speed out of his race and some time to celebrate his manifold achievements with the crowd and on the last metres.
While Jørgen Graabak and Eric Frenzel were gunning to close the gap to the athletes in front of them, Espen Bjørnstad and Jens Lurås Oftebro skied a tactically smart race, alternating with the leading work and pulled each other ahead to keep the gap to the fast pursuers steady. The two managed to keep a 20-second gap on Graabak alive and could therefore celebrate their season fifth and second podium respectively. Jørgen Graabak completed a quadruple victory by shaking off Eric Frenzel after the 6 km point of the race.
Even though the German dominator of the past was not able to go all the distance to a podium result today, the German team still impressed with incredible five athletes in the Top Ten with Eric Frenzel on five, Manuel Faißt on six, Vinzenz Geiger on eight, Terence Weber on nine and Fabian Rießle on 10. The only non-Norwegian and non-German in the Top Ten was Austria’s Martin Fritz on position seven, who had lost contact to Bjørnstad because of a fall early on in the race. He finally finished +1:11.9 after Riiber.
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