North.

Johannes Rydzek saved third place with a daring final lap, and Eric Frenzel was once again without a chance: The German combiners have to wait for their first win of the season after the second World Cup race in Kuusamo, Finland.

Last year’s “dominators” lost the nimbus of invincibility at the beginning of the Olympic winter. The superior Japanese Akito Watabe was unbeatable on Saturday.

“I am totally happy with the result,”said Rydzek, who had fallen in the penultimate lap and had to fight his way up again:”With so much adrenaline as after the crash, it’s difficult to find a rhythm again,” said national coach Hermann Weinbuch on ARD television:”It was a very good race by Johannes. With the fall, the attack was a thing of the past.”

The day before, Rydzek had still been disappointed with 19th place, but this time it was at least enough to finish first on the podium for the successful Oberstdorfer.

The 25-year-old four-time world champion, who finished seventh after jumping in the final 10 km cross-country race, had attacked from a large group of chasers over the last few kilometres, but had landed in the snow.

Despite the following exhausting race to catch up and a near crash on the last descent, the Allgäuer was still in third place in the chasing sprint behind the Finn Eero Hirvonen.

Rydzek, last year’s winner of both individual competitions in Kuuasamo, was 32.8 seconds behind the undoubted winner Watabe, who had already led after the jumping event. Hirvonen was 1.1 seconds ahead of Rydzek.

Team World Champion Fabian Rießle (Breitnau) finished eleventh (+1:08.3) and the five-time overall World Cup winner Eric Frenzel (Oberwiesenthal) finished twelfth (+1:09.0) ahead of Vinzenz Geiger (Oberstdorf) in 13th place (+1:10.5).

“It wasn’t ideal, but it was a decent start,”said Frenzel, who had given up after the jumping on Friday in the face of a huge gap and this time he had entered the race from eleventh place:”There’s a lot to do, above all I have to ski better”.

Rydzek’s form is by no means bad, he had already shown on Friday with the clear fastest runtime of all starters – but it’s not enough for the front runners at the moment “Our jumping performances are not yet so stable that we can cope with it under all conditions,”said Weinbuch.

Already after two races you can clearly see: A self runner like last season, the Rydzek, Frenzel and Co. The Olympic winter will not be dominated at will and won 21 out of 23 seasonal competitions against competitors, some of them without any chance of winning.

After the Lahti World Championships, the Norwegians in particular opened up with a summer effort, and Austria, France and Japan’s Watabe are also on their way – in the case of Watabe even more than that.

On Sunday (10.45/13.30 CET in the LIVETICKER) a third individual competition will take place in Kuusamo, the following weekend the World Cup will take place in Lillehammer.