The German combined teams around quadruple world champion Johannes Rydzek and overall World Cup winner Eric Frenzel just missed out on victory in the first team competition of the Olympic season.
At the World Cup in Lillehammer, the DSV quartet had to settle for second place behind arch-rival and Olympic champion Norway, who presented himself in strong form at the home game in Pyeongchang just two months before the start of the winter games in Pyeongchang.
“We’re not so strong in jumping yet, we’ll work on that. And then we will once again be able to play the decisive part before Norway,”said national coach Hermann Weinbuch on ZDF.
Final runner Fabian Rießle had to admit defeat to the Norwegian Jörgen Graabak after a splendid German race to catch up in the final sprint.
The DSV combiners had suffered their last defeat in a team competition in March 2016 in Schonach as second behind Norway.
The Norwegians had also taught the DSV fourth at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi the last bankruptcy in a major race, while Germany had won the world championship in 2015 and 2017.
The relay world champions Rydzek, Frenzel and Rießle as well as junior world champion Vinzenz Geiger were 1.7 seconds behind the Norwegians after one jump and cross-country skiing over 4×5 km each, who had gone into the cross-country skiing track 46 seconds ahead of Germany, mainly thanks to the youngster Jarl Magnus Riiber. France finished third (+21.4).
Olympia is still in the 21st century. January in the French Chaux-Neuve a relay competition on the program, the Olympic team decision in Pyeongchang falls on 22nd January in the French Chaux-Neuve. February.
The fourth individual competition of the season will be held in Lillehammer on Sunday (9.00 am in the LIVETICKER) and Johannes Rydzek would take over the yellow jersey of the overall World Cup leader with his second victory of the season.