Second World Cup victory for Julian Schmid in Nordic Combined. Nathalie Armbruster also delivered the next top result.
Strong result for the German combined athletes in Otepää. Julian Schmid sprinted to victory, Nathalie Armbruster was second on Sunday.
Six days after her 17th birthday, Armbruster from the Black Forest was only beaten by Norwegian long-term winner Gyda Westvold Hansen. Jenny Nowak (Sohland) also achieved the best result of her career in fourth place.
“I couldn’t be happier”said Armbruster: “I don’t even know what to say. That was the best result of my career. I have to process that first.”
catch-up rewarded
After a jump of 91.5 meters, Armbruster was fourth in cross-country skiing over five kilometers. She made up a lot of ground there, only missing Westvold Hansen by 26.6 seconds. For the world champion it was the fifth victory in the fifth competition of the season.
At the mass start competition on Saturday, the jumping was canceled due to strong winds.
Schmid ice cold in the final sprint: Second World Cup victory
There was even a German victory about an hour later in the combined men’s event. After an exciting final sprint, Julian Schmid prevailed against the two Austrians Johanes Lamparter and Franz-Josef Rehrl. Schmid celebrated the second World Cup victory of his career in Estonia. The other German starters had nothing to do with the fight for the podium.
Schmid Best of a group of four – Riiber is missing
Schmid had flown in fourth place in icy temperatures in the morning. The German was already 16 seconds behind jump winner Ryota Yamamoto after 1.2 kilometers. Together with Lamparter and Rehrl, a four-man lead group formed. The lead changed constantly, none of the quartet was able to break away. So it was the final sprint that counted – and here Schmid had the fastest legs in the absence of the sick World Cup leader Jarl Magnus Riiber from Norway.
Schmid: “Hard race”
“The race was very tough today. The jumping in the morning was difficult. So today’s win is really good for me.”, said the winner of the day, Schmid, while still in the finish area. Second-placed Lamparter wasn’t so happy: “I’m a bit disappointed. I invested a lot in the race, did three laps of work from the front. So I wasn’t able to attack on the fourth lap.”
Four DSV athletes in the top 15
The other Germans were already too far behind after jumping to be able to intervene at the front. After sixth place in jumping, Manuel Faißt fell back to eighth place (+ 30.4 seconds). Terence Weber also lost ground in the fast race: He dropped from 15th place to 25th (+ 1:17.8 minutes).
The other athletes from the team of national coach Herrmann Weinbuch improved: Fabian Rießle moved up from 27th to 13th place (+ 54.1 seconds), for Jakob Lange it went from 23rd to 15th place (+ 56.3 seconds), for Eric Frenzel from 17 to 16 (+58.1 seconds). David Mach and Tristan Sommerfeldt finished 41st (+ 2:41 minutes) and 42nd (+ 3:11.1 minutes).