A star is born: Johannes Lamparter powers to gold
Mar 04, 2021·Nordic Combined
Reigning FIS Junior World Champion Johannes Lamparter from Austria is also the new FIS World Champion 2021! The 19-year-old claimed the title in the large hill Individual Gudnersen competition in a dominant fashion and left no chance to his closest pursuers, normal hill World Champion Jarl Magnus Riiber and Akito Watabe. Lamparter set his very first win on the big stage (he hasn't won a World Cup yet and just climbed his first podium this winter) +37.1 seconds ahead of Jarl Magnus Riiber and 45.8 seconds ahead of bronze medallist Akito Watabe.
Lamparter impressed everyone with a magic jump in the competition round in which many athletes struggled with light tail wind conditions and missed the crucial last few metres. Lamparter jumped to 138 metres (153.3 p.) and conquered a 22-second cushion for the start of the cross-country race.
Akito Watabe continued with his stable strong ski jumping and claimed rank two with a jump of 137.5 metres in slightly better conditions than Lamparter. Watabe had a point total of 147.6 seconds and in turn a 15-second buffer on Jarl Magnus Riiber, who showed 135 metres (144 p.) Serial jumping winner Ryota Yamamoto from Japan had not the best conditions and ended up on position four with 131 metres (143.7 p) and started his race one second after Riiber.
Behind these four best jumpers of the field, a gap of one minute opened. Mario Seidl was fifth with an 125.5 metre attempt and started his race +1:34 behind his teammate Lamparter. Gasper Brecl delighted Slovenian fans by manning the leaderboard for a long time with a jump of 132 metres with bib 6. Kristjan Ilves and Espen Andersen were also among the Top Ten jumpers and Fabian Rießle was the best athlete for the host country with 126 metres and a start delay of +1:55. Title defender Eric Frenzel was 13th and left the start line of the race with a delay of two minutes and 14 seconds.
Lamparter left no doubts about his ability to set the win today when he started the race and steadily began to pull away from his pursuers. 23.4 seconds at the 2.5 km point turned into 32.9 second at 5 km, 34.4 at 7.5 km and 37.1 seconds at the finish, even though Akito Watabe and Jarl Magnus Riiber skied together from the second lap onwards.
But also behind the top three, the gap to the pursuers did not fall below the one minute gal from the start. Ryota Yamamoto was ultimately caught by the pursuers on the third lap but none of the pursuing athletes could change anything about the course of events at the front.
Ultimately, Eric Frenzel claimed the best position of the second group and collected his second fourth place of this World Championships, +1:57.7 behind Lamparter. He outsprinted teammate Fabian Rießle by 0.2 seconds. Finland’s Ilkka Herola was the fastest athlete on the track once more and turned the 19th in the the 6th place in the end.
Jens Lurås‚ Oftebro and Espen Andersen were a Norwegian duo on ranks seven and eight and France’s Laurent Mühlethaler fulfilled his goal of a Top Ten rank with position nine. Ryota Yamamoto ended up on position ten.
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