Nordic Combined 2016 - 2017 Discussion Thread

[Werloc 3,164]

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

Tino Edelmann just announced that he will retire with immediate effect

http://www.fis-ski.com/nordic-combined/news-multimedia/news/article=tino-edelmann-ends-his-career.html

[dcro 10,210]

Johannes Rydzek wins the opener. Eero Hirvonen finished just outside of the podium, very positive result for Finnish nordic combined.

Btw, I see that Kuusamo is as beautiful as ever.

[heywoodu 15,135]

29 minutes ago, dcro said:

Johannes Rydzek wins the opener. Eero Hirvonen finished just outside of the podium, very positive result for Finnish nordic combined.

Btw, I see that Kuusamo is as beautiful as ever.

Dude started with a 25th place as his best ever individual result, also his only top-30 result ever..then finishes 4th in front of his home crowd, by far the Man of the Day  

[dcro 10,210]

15 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Dude started with a 25th place as his best ever individual result, also his only top-30 result ever..then finishes 4th in front of his home crowd, by far the Man of the Day  

I watched only XC and at the start I thought he was one of those who can only jump. But as it turns out he can also ski.

[hckošice 14,822]

Johannes Rydzek claims first victory of 2016/17

 

The first name in the 2016/17 winner’s list in Nordic Combined is Johannes Rydzek. The 24-year-old captured the victory by 34.1 seconds over runner-up Eric Frenzel. The podium was completed by Jørgen Graabak from Norway who finished 45.6 seconds later.

 

Akito Watabe took a close victory over Johannes Rydzek in the jumping round with the Japanese landing at 141.5 metres. With a total of 145 points, Watabe just had 0.2 points more than Germany’s Rydzek who shone with very good 140.5 metres. For the track, this meant the two athletes were only separared by one second at the start. Finnish youngster Eero Hirvonen continued in great shape after his victory at the Finnish national last weekend and captured the intermediate third position with 138 metres and 140.8 points which put him 17 seconds behind Watabe.

Hot candidates for the victory and podium results were also Olympic champion Jørgen Graabak who held the fourth position after the jump with a time behind of 24 seconds and Björn Kircheisen. The veteran had shown stable, solid jumping from the first jump yesterday and achieved 132.5 metres today, putting him one minute and five seconds behind Watabe. German teammates Frenzel and Rießle followed on positions eight and nine, +1:13 and +1:37 behind the leader.

 

Watabe and Rydzek skied together for the first part of the race but it became clear quite quickly that Watabe was not able to hold on to Rydzek. From this moment on, the first race turned into a one-man show. Rydzek went away from Watabe, skied a lonely race at the top and was never in the slightest danger to lose the first victory of the season. Even with slightly reduced speed in the end, Rydzek still set the second-fastest racing time and finished over half a minute earlier than his teammate Eric Frenzel.

Frenzel skied a courageous race behind the leading duo, setting the fastest-cross country time of 26:52.8. At first, he was together with teammate Björn Kircheisen and Mario Seidl and on the last lap, the trio caught up with Jørgen Graabak and Eero Hirvonen. The Finn and The Norwegian had held the positions three and four in the beginning but overtook Akito Watabe by the half point of the race. Especially the newly minted Finnish champion Hirvonen surprised with a strong performance and cheered on by his home crowd, he finally brought a fourth position into the finish, the first Top Ten rank of his career. Graabak had to let Frenzel pass but was the only Norwegian with a position in the Top 20 in the end.

The rest of the Top Ten positions went to Mario Seidl, Björn Kircheisen, Akito Watabe, Fabian Rießle, Philipp Orter and David Pommer.

 

Full Results and Cup Standing in our Results Database

 

[hckošice 14,822]

Johannes Rydzek does it again in Ruka

 

Second win in the second competition of the Ruka weekend for Johannes Rydzek. The overall World Cup leader scored his second 100 points by finishing 14.7 seconds ahead of Austrian veteran Willi Denifl. Akito Watabe captured rank three in a finish sprint fight against Austria’s Mario Seidl.  

 

Jarl Magnus Riiber was back to competing today after having to take a rest day due to sickness yesterday and he had a good comeback on the jumping hill. even though he still struggled with the rhythm of his jump, he still managed to land at 133.5 metres. This distance was matched by runner-up Akito Watabe but Riiber totalled at 139.4 points which put him 8 seconds ahead of Watabe (137.5 points). Austrian veteran Willi Denifl had a great jump that conquered the third intermediate position for him (132 m; 135 p.) and put him 18 seconds behind Riiber at the start of the cross-country race.

Yesterday’s winner Johannes Rydzek was in a promising position again, jumping 126.5 metres (123.4 p.) which gave him one minute and four seconds to catch up, a doable feat for strong skier Rydzek, especially with the confidence boost from his seventh World Cup victory the day before. The audience was delighted with the performances of local heroes Eero Hirvonen and Ilkka Herola who claimed the intermediate positions six and seven with +1:31 and +1:38 respectively. Björn Kircheisen showed solid jumping again and held rank 10 with one minute and 43 seconds as his task for the race.

 

 

Full Results and standings Here

 

[ahjfcshfghb 287]

Interesting, by the way, that FIS are now organizing a junior WC of sorts for women. I heard they hope to put a women's Nordic Combined event at the 2022 Olympics. About time! Hopefully the level of competition will be decent and they can follow the example of women's ski jumping.

[hckošice 14,822]

Team Germany gala performance in Lillehammer

 

Team Germany delighted their fans with a gala performance in Lillehammer today. Björn Kircheisen, Eric Frenzel, Fabian Rießle and Johannes Rydzek beat Team Norway consisting of Kokslien, Andersen, Klemetsen and Graabak by 31.5 seconds. The Austrian team (Pommer, Seidl, Denifl, Orter) finished one minute and 23 second later.

 

In the jumping round, all four German athletes showed extremely solid performances, taking the team into the pole position for the race by 13 seconds. Eric Frenzel won his group with 98 metres and 128.9 points, Rießle and Rydzek were second each (101.5 m and 95 metres; 127.9 and 121.4 points) and also Björn Kircheisen was very satisfied with his 99.5 metres and 129.8 points. 508 points in total meant a narrow advantage on the Austrian team which was on start with three young athletes and veteran Willi Denifl.

The Austrians accumulated 498.6 points by 101, 100, 96 and 96-metre jumps set by Denifl, Pommer, Orter and Mario Seidl. On rank three, the Japanese team followed with a little gap at +0:48 seconds after Aguri Shimizu, Hideaki Nagai and Yoshito Watabe had solid jumps and brother Akito shone with the longest jump of the day (ex aequo with Finland’s Eero Hirvonen) of 103 metres.

The Finnish team had a strong day on the hill, taking them to the fourth position, +0:58 seconds behind the Germans while the Norwegian local heroes had to be satisfied with rank five and one minute and four seconds to make up after Mikko Kokslien and especially Jørgen Graabak had struggled with their jumps.

Team Germany was never in any position to have to fight for their victory. From the first lap on, starting skier Björn Kircheisen picked up the pace and increased the distance to the young Austrian skier David Pommer who had started with 13 seconds of time disadvantage and finished with +36.4. Mikko Kokslien brought Team Norway on the third position and teammate Espen Andersen continued the positive trend and closed the gap to the second Austrian skier, Mario Seidl. With a small gap opening up at the end of Andersen’s lap, Håvard Klemetsen extended the lead and worked successfully on securing the silver position, a feat that teammate Jørgen Graabak finished. Austria had to be satisfied with rank three, finishing over a minute after the winner from Germany in the end.

The 2015/16 Nations Cup winners continued with a strong team effort and in the end, Johannes Rydzek even had time for a spectacular jump over the last bump leading into Lillehammer’s cross-country stadium before ending his team’s gala performance with the appropriate bow.

The young team from Finland finished on a great fourth rank, +1:44 behind Germany, continuing the upward trend from Ruka. Japan captured position five, France ended up on the sixth rank.

 

 

Full Results Here

 

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

This might have been the worst/most boring relay I've seen in a long time