As many of the Nordic Combined teams are passing the competition break with training camps in Seefeld right now, the Norwegian, French and Japanese teams agreed to have a friendly test competition this past weekend.

The win went to Norway’s Magnus Moan who trains in Seefeld together with teammate Jan Schmid at the moment who captured the second rank, just one second behind the winner. Rank three went to Japan’s Akito Watabe who finished eleven seconds later.

The jumping round took place on Seefeld’s HS 109 hill and the top rank was taken by Akito Watabe with a jump of 103 metres which translated into 127.5 points. Jan Schmid followed in second with 99 metres (126.5 p.) and France’s Francois Braud set 102 metres which gave him the intermediate third position with a total of 123 points.

On the cross-country track, Watabe had a 4-second head start on Schmid who started 14 seconds ahead of Braud. Magnus Moan held the fourth position after the jump and had to make up 26 seconds, a very doable challenge for the fast Norwegian. Behind these four athletes a bigger gap opened up as Yoshito Watabe was the next to start, one minute and 30 seconds later than his brother. 

In the end, Moan set the fastest cross-country time of 21:00 minutes and beat out teammate Jan Schmid in a sprint for the finish line. Behind the two first ranks, five seconds separated Watabe and Francois Braud who took the fourth overall rank, 15 seconds behind Moan. In total, 12 athletes participated in the test event.

For the three podium athletes, the long-standing Japanese team hotel in Seefeld, Habhof Mösern even donated prizes: big bottles of Starkenberger beer. The event concluded with a joined lunch of all three teams.  

The Japanese team will now use the time until the next event for another short training camp in Val di Fiemme where it will meet the German team, maybe for another friendly competition.

Source: fis-ski.com