Greiderer, Lamparter claim Austria's first Team Sprint gold at Nordic World Ski Championships
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, March 7, 2021
Lukas Greiderer and newly-crowned world champion Johannes Lamparter teamed up to claim the first-ever Team Sprint gold medal for Austria at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany on Saturday.
The Austrian duo crossed the finish line 39.6 seconds ahead of Espen Andersen and Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway, who claimed silver. Fabian Riessle and Eric Frenzel from Germany outsprinted Japanese duo of Ryota Yamamoto and Akito Watabe for bronze, 1 minute and 7.4 seconds behind the winners.
As expected, Japan captured a leading position in the jumping section. Two jumps of 136 meters earned Watabe and Yamamoto an aggregate score of 296 points. After Lamparter's triumph in the individual large hill event on Thursday, the Austrian team continued their favorable form, as Lamparter hit another amazing jump by flying to 140.5 meters and Greiderer followed with a jump of 133 meters, giving them 295 points in total. The Austrians were two seconds behind the Japanese on the start line going into the cross-country skiing section.
Norway's Andersen delivered a solid jump of 133.5 meters but Riiber failed to finish a perfect jump with only 130.5 meters. The Norwegians had to contend with a delay of 34 seconds.
Austria remained untouchable in the cross-country race, as both Greiderer and Lamparter skied at a strong pace. Japan managed to hang on for the first two laps, while Yamamoto dropped back to a 10-second delay after his second lap.
Norway struggled to make up a significant gap on the Austrians and the distance remained between 25 and 35 seconds for most of the race. After 7.5 kilometers, Andersen and Riiber had caught Japan. At the 10.5 km point, the Japanese duo was 15 seconds behind Norway and had to be wary of pursuers as Germany came closer and closer.
Yamamoto fought on his last lap and managed to keep Riessle behind him, but the Japanese and German teams exchanged at the same time, and a dramatic last lap of the race followed. Despite trying his best, Watabe had to concede defeat to Frenzel in the last few meters and finished around two seconds after the bronze medalist.
Five Nordic Combined gold medals on offer at this world championships are shared by Norway and Austria, with the former dominating the normal hill events and the latter sweeping the large hill golds.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)