Ramsau ready for more teenage kicks as Lamparter eyes a first
Dec 17, 2025·Nordic Combined
A potential three-way fight for the Viessman FIS Nordic Combined women’s World Cup title will gather further pace this week with two more competitions over an action-packed two days in Ramsau, Austria, which will also see the men tackle two events.
The emergence of 17-year-old Katharina Gruber (AUT) in a thrilling season-opening round for the women in Trondheim two weeks ago served notice to 2023-24 champion Ida Marie Hagen (NOR) and last season’s overall title winner Nathalie Armbruster (GER) that they may not have it all their own way in the battle for the Crystal Globe this winter.
Gruber only competed in her first World Cup competitions this time last year in Ramsau, finishing 19th in a Mass Start and 24th in an individual Compact.
She also posted three top-20 finishes at the Seefeld ‘Triple’ weekend last season, her only other World Cup events before Trondheim.
But Gruber finished fourth in the season-opening Gundersen before posting a remarkable victory in the Mass Start - just her seventh World Cup start – after a stunning 97.0-meter jump, 2.5m further than anyone else, catapulted her from 13th after the cross-country to the top of the podium.
“I can’t believe it, I am so overwhelmed,” she said after becoming the youngest woman, and the first Austrian, to win a World Cup competition.
Gruber’s stunning breakthrough adds to the infusion of young talent in women’s Nordic Combined, with six of the current top 10 in the overall standings still in their teens.
Five years on from Ramsau hosting the first ever women’s World Cup competition – won by American Tara Geraghty-Moats – the Austrian plateau has proved to be an important staging post for a number of Nordic Combiners.
Minja Korhonen, the 18-year-old Finn who started the season with two fifth places in Trondheim, achieved both her two World Cup podiums to date in Ramsau, the first as a 16-year-old in December 2023 before repeating the feat 12 months ago (below, right).
A week after her maiden World Cup podium in Otepää (EST) in December 2021, Yuna Kasai (JPN) backed it up with a second podium in Ramsau, while Lisa Hirner (AUT) finished second for the first time – still her joint-best World Cup finish – on home snow in Ramsau in December 2022.
That was the same month in which Armbruster announced herself as a 16-year-old with three podiums - two of them in Ramsau - among seven in her first full season on the World Cup circuit.
But Hagen, who holds a 20-point lead in the overall standings from Gruber and Armbruster, will start favourite at a venue where she has won her last three competitions, including both 12 months ago – a Mass Start and a Compact.
After a PCR on Thursday, the women will again compete in a Mass Start, on Friday, 19 December, before an individual Gundersen on Saturday.
At 25 and in her fifth World Cup season, Hagen is three years older than anyone else currently in the top 10, which also includes 17-year-old Heta Hirvonen (FIN), Japan's Yuzuki Kainuma (18) and Hagen’s 18-year-old team-mate Ingrid Laate (NOR), currently ranked No.1 in the ski jumping standings.
But while Laate posted two eighth-place finishes in Trondheim, she has not yet proved strong enough in the tracks to challenge for a podium, whereas Gruber’s 13th place in the Mass Start cross-country gave her enough of a platform for an outstanding jump to propel her to a maiden World Cup win.
“I’m very impressed with Katharina, she is doing amazing,” Hagen said. “We really have to keep working, us older girls. It’s cool she is pushing the sport forward. I am just very inspired.”
Lamparter aims to stay in yellow
Another athlete seeking further inspiration as he heads for home snow is Johannes Lamparter (AUT), who holds a 43-point lead over Julian Schmid (GER) in the men’s overall standings after winning three of the first four competitions of the season.
The 2022-23 Crystal Globe winner only achieved his first individual podium in Ramsau at the 10th attempt with a second place in December 2022, but it proved a turning point in his season after a slow start as he won seven of the next 11 events to surge to the overall title, taking the leader’s Yellow Bib after winning the Seefeld ‘Triple’ and holding it through Oberstdorf (GER), Schonach (GER) and Oslo (NOR) to the final weekend in Lahti (FIN).
The following year he won both events in Ramsau, his only World Cup triumphs there, but it wasn’t enough to wrestle the Yellow Bib from Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR).
This season Lamparter has been in yellow from the opening competition in Ruka (FIN) and after winning the Large Hill Gundersen (above) in Trondheim on 7 December, the 24-year-old hopes to remain in front heading into the Christmas break after a Mass Start on Friday and a Gundersen on Saturday.
“At the moment I am thinking of collecting the Yellow Bib from every station and in my career (so far), Ramsau is still missing, so that would be very nice,” he said.
Lamparter is one of three Austrians in the top five in the standings, with Franz-Josef Rehrl (AUT) and Thomas Rettenegger (AUT) also aiming for further success on home snow after strong starts to the season.
Meanwhile, Akito Watabe (JPN, above), could break the record this weekend for most individual World Cup starts, nearly 20 years since his debut as a 17-year-old in Sapporo (JPN) in March 2006.
The 37-year-old, who joined the World Cup circuit full-time in 2008, finished in the top three in the overall standings seven times in eight years between 2011 and 2019 and won the Crystal Globe in 2017-18, a season when he claimed eight of his 19 individual World Cup wins.
Watabe, who will retire at the end of this winter, has competed in 294 individual World Cup events. If he starts both in Ramsau, where he has had 16 top-10 finishes but never reached the podium, he will surpass the record of Wilhelm Denifl (AUT), who competed in 295 between 2000 and 2019.
FIS NORDIC COMBINED WORLD CUP – RAMSAU SCHEDULE (all times CET)
19.12.2025
10:15 – Women’s Mass Start CC
11:00 – Men’s Mass Start CC
12:30 – Women’s Individual NH SJ
13:15 – Men’s Individual NH SJ
20.12.2025
08:30 – Women’s Individual NH SJ
09:15 – Men’s Individual NH SJ
14:45 – Men’s Individual Gundersen 10km
15:30 – Women’s Individual Gundersen 5km
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