Sunday, January 09, 2022
Update
An overview of winter sports
Combiners deliver a great race
Victory and podium for the combiners, victory and failure for the bobsleigh pilots: From a German point of view, the winter sports day provides plenty of opportunities to cheer and pity. The developments and results of the day at a glance.
The German Nordic combined athlete Vinzenz Geiger won the individual competition in Val di Fiemme. One day after his second place, the 24-year-old from Oberstdorf won ahead of Austria’s Johannes Lamparter and individual Olympic champion Johannes Rydzek. After the large hill jump, Rydzek was still in 19th place and improved on the podium over the ten kilometers. On Saturday Lamparter had won ahead of Geiger and Eric Frenzel. Everyone benefited from the cancellation of the Norwegian Jarl Magnus Riiber, who has back problems.
“Tactically I didn’t do much wrong. Suddenly I felt really good again. Then it was full throttle and tried to break up the group. That worked out perfectly,” said the satisfied winner Geiger on ARD. He is already “hot” for the Olympics in Beijing (February 4th to 20th). Riiber has won all of its actively contested competitions this winter. Twice he fell out with back problems, and once he was disqualified. Behind Geiger and Rydzek, Frenzel (7th) and Manuel Faißt (10th) also made it into the top ten. Fabian Rießle and Terence Weber followed directly behind. National coach Hermann Weinbuch has an extremely broad-based team available for the games in China.
Strong lesser risks a lot and loses
Biathlete Roman Rees finished sixth in the pursuit race at the home World Cup in Oberhof. After his fifth place in the sprint, the 28-year-old had a chance of a podium, but was unable to work his way up after three shooting errors. When Frenchman Quentin Fillon Maillet won (2 penalties), Rees was 44.9 seconds behind at the finish. Second place went to the Swede Sebastian Samuelsson (1 mistake) ahead of the Norwegian veteran Tarjei Bö (3 mistakes).
The German ex-world champion Erik Lesser even had a chance of his first podium this season until the last shooting. The 33-year-old managed to do two penalty loops in his place of residence and fell back to eighth after a total of three shooting errors. In the Thuringian Forest, it was still his best placement in the Olympic winter. It wasn’t until Friday that Lesser even qualified for the Winter Games in Beijing.
Benedikt Doll (3 mistakes) made it from 38th to 15th place, sprint fourth Johannes Kühn fell back to 22nd place after six penalties. Philipp Nawrath (3) finished 25th, Lucas Fratzscher lost 30 positions and only crossed the finish line in 52nd in difficult conditions with heavy snowfall and wind.
Young hopes race for the Olympic ticket, Dürr just missed the podium
The German ski racer Emma Aicher secured her ticket for Beijing around four weeks before the start of the Winter Olympics. The 18-year-old hopeful finished 13th at the Slalom World Cup in Kranjska Gora to qualify for the mega sporting event in February. Lena Dürr finished fourth in the victory of the Slovakian Petra Vlhova and narrowly missed her third slalom podium of the season. Paulina Schlosser could not start after her lower leg fracture, which she suffered in the giant slalom the day before.
For overall World Cup winner Vlova it was already the fifth success in the sixth slalom of the Olympic winter. Swiss Wendy Holdener came in second, 0.23 seconds back, followed by Anna Swenn-Larsson from Sweden (+1.06). The US-American Mikaela Shiffrin retired after a driving error in round two.
Nolte wins, Jamanka has a bitter mishap
Laura Nolte clinched her fourth win of the season in the two-man bobsleigh on her home track in Winterberg. With her Olympic pusher Deborah Levi, she was 0.13 seconds ahead of teammate Kim Kalicki. The Wiesbaden woman drove with Leonie Fiebig. Third place went to US pilot Kaillie Humphries. Two-man bobsleigh Olympic champion Mariama Jamanka failed at the start with Germany’s fastest sprinter Alexandra Burghardt and had to be content with ninth place. In the first run, the duo ran too far, so that the sled got out of the inrun lane when boarding and crashed against the boards, which caused an enormous disadvantage in terms of time. “I have already received a lot of encouraging messages from the team. It would rather happen here than at the Olympics in Beijing,” said Burghardt.
Luge Taubitz beaten, but further ahead
In the exciting duel for victory in the overall World Cup, Julia Taubitz had to give way to her strongest competitor Madeleine Egle this time. The Austrian won the Luge World Cup in Sigulda and was able to shorten the gap to Taubitz, who was leading in the overall standings. Natalie Geisenberger, who finished fourth on the narrow and difficult track in Latvia, just missed out on the podium. Anna Berreiter from Berchtesgaden came in tenth. Taubitz had to acknowledge her competitor’s performance after two very good runs. “Madeleine was way ahead of us today and delivered a really strong performance,” said the 25-year-old.