Nordic combination: false start in Kuusamo: Rydzek and Frenzel blown away by the wind

Johannes Rydzek ran to the finish line with his shoulders hanging down, Erik Frenzel even saved himself the trouble of cross-country skiing:”The German combiners had a classic false start to the Olympic season. In the wind chaos of Kuusamo, four-time World Champion Rydzek was only in 19th place, while five-time overall World Cup winner Frenzel had to pull out of the sails prematurely after a huge gap. Best German in the first World Cup victory of the Norwegian Espen Andersen was experienced Björn Kircheisen in eighth place.

“We have not been able to cope with the changing winds in jumping today,”said national coach Hermann Weinbuch on ARD television:”We still lack the jump form to be at the forefront in such conditions. Luckily, we’ll have competitions again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.”

For the first time after 39 individual races in a row, no German combiner was on the podium in the World Cup. Most recently this was on 19. This is the case in Ramsau/Austria on 12 December 2015.

In Kuusamo, Andersen, who had never been on the World Cup podium before, was 7.7 seconds ahead of his compatriot Jan Schmid after a jump and the cross-country”Sprint” over 5 km. The Norwegians, who had been badly beaten in the previous year, thus came back impressively. The Japanese Akito Watabe (+11.0) finished third. The 34-year-old Kircheisen was 1:18.1 minutes behind, while Rydzek was 3:10.1 minutes behind.

“I did a very good race, it was a good start. But the season is still a long way off,”said Kircheisen, behind Terence Weber in a good 18th century. second-best German. All in all, however, it was a sensitive damper after the roaring World Cup winter.

In the pre-season the German combiners had cleared everything. 21 of 23 individual competitions won the “Big 4” Frenzel (10), Rydzek (8), Rießle (2), in Kuusamo as 24th place. equally disappointing, and church iron (1). Only Watabe was able to score two victories in between. Frenzel was the first combined racer to win the overall World Cup for the fifth time in succession. At the World Championships all gold medals went to Germany, Rydzek won twice in the singles, in addition with the relay and in the team sprint.

Even jumping in the already traditionally difficult wind conditions from the Rukatunturi ski jump had already cost the two German top stars all chances of victory. In constantly changing conditions, Rydzek flew only 106.0 m – 26 m shorter than jump champion Mario Seidl (Austria), who ended up fourth,”The jump was not that wrong. I knew it would be difficult,”said Rydzek.

While the Oberstdorfer than 22. with a gap of 3:46 minutes in the final 5km sprint – the normal World Cup distance is twice as long – Frenzel had blown it out completely: 100.0 m, rank 30,4:31 minutes distance to Seidl.

The Saxon native took it calmly:”Sometimes you just have bad luck. After consultation with Weinbuch, however, Frenzel packed his skis back in. France’s five-time World Champion Jason Lamy Chappuis, who celebrated his World Cup comeback after a two-and-a-half year break in Kuusamo, also did not compete after finishing 47th in the show jumping competition.