Berlin – The German Nordic Combined missed out on the title in the prestigious triple but gained plenty of confidence for the Winter Olympics. Above all, Vinzenz Geiger convinced on the three consecutive days of competition in Seefeld with places two, one and four at the end on Sunday. “I’m very happy with the weekend,” said the man from Oberstdorf, who is one of the hopefuls for a medal in Beijing. National coach Hermann Weinbuch described the dress rehearsal for the ring spectacle on ZDF as “very important for self-confidence”. “We were outstanding in running for the first two days. Today we were a bit tired.”
The Norwegian Joergen Graabak secured victory in the final cross-country race over 12.5 kilometers ahead of the Austrian Johannes Lamparter and his compatriot Jarl Magnus Riiber. The last ski jumping event in Austria had previously been canceled due to poor wind conditions. For the starting order in cross-country skiing, the so-called provisional evaluation round was used, which did not go so well for most German combined athletes.
Five days before the opening of the Winter Games, Julian Schmid in ninth and Terence Weber in tenth also made it into the top ten behind Geiger. Triple record winner Eric Frenzel was eleventh. The DSV team stays in the Alps until Wednesday and then travels to Beijing.