Zhangjiakou (dpa) – The Nordic combined athlete Vinzenz Geiger crowned an outstanding race to catch up and won the gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in China.
After his furious final sprint of more than one kilometer, the 24-year-old was in disbelief at the finish line in Zhangjiakou when the defeated Johannes Rydzek crossed the finish line in fifth place with the last of his strength. After a jump from the normal hill and the ten-kilometer run, the winner was someone who no one had expected: Geiger, who also left behind Joergen Graabak from Norway and Lukas Greiderer from Austria as other medal winners.
Geiger jumped onto the podium at the award ceremony and proudly showed both his fists. “Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!” “A great performance at full throttle and yet a lot of tactics involved,” said IOC President Thomas Bach of the German Press Agency. “Half of that ended after a safe two medals – and then to come in again as a chasing group, that was a really exciting Olympic race.”
Geiger, who had already won Olympic gold in 2018 with the German relay team led by Rydzek, Eric Frenzel and Fabian Rießle, was 1:26 minutes behind. Rydzek looked like the certain winner for a long time and was then intercepted in the last meters. The third German starter, Julian Schmid, took eighth place, having also belonged to the small top group with Geiger and Greiderer for a long time.
Frenzel: “What a great race”
“How awesome. I congratulate you, what a great race,” wrote Frenzel, who was infected with Corona, immediately via Instagram. Geiger’s gold coup was not only due to his own outstanding performance, but also to the failure of several top performers in the combination. Frenzel dropped out, as did Norway’s world champion and top favorite Jarl Magnus Riiber. The co-favorites Terence Weber (also Germany) and Kristjan Ilves from Estonia had also tested positive for the virus in China and were unable to take part.
The decimated German team, which was only able to muster three starters due to the pandemic, has become an Olympic champion team again. In 2014 and 2018 there had already been gold medals at the largest sporting event for winter sports enthusiasts – that’s how it went this time, even without the isolated guarantor Frenzel.
Geiger, on the other hand, was a contact person, but remained negative – and showed an outstanding athletic performance on the cross-country ski run. “I still see a small hint of possibility,” national coach Hermann Weinbuch said about Geiger after the jump. He took the chance and attacked furiously from a chasing group. After the jumping, the strong runner from Oberstdorf commented: “With a perfect running race, a medal is possible.”
In the past few days he had experienced a lot of confusion because, as the contact person, he wasn’t allowed to go to the hill with his teammates. Once he was even let out at the snowboard facility. “It was really huge chaos for me. It was really hard. But I think I’m fit today,” announced Geiger before the run – and proved it impressively a little later.