After the 2-year-construction period of the new hills and facilities was finalised, the Nordic Arena in Kandersteg, Switzerland opened its doors for the first time and held its first international competitions in Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined. Although the official international opening event of the normal hill is only taking place today, the young athletes had the chance to jump on the smaller K 24 and K 66 hills yesterday and round off the event with a cross-country run.

In this Nordic Combined section, the victories went to Mathis Czekala in the U-13 category on the smaller hill. Czekala had already been in the lead after the jumping part and defended his first place in the 1 km cross-country run. He crossed the finish line 23.5 second ahead of second-placed Nicolas Panzinz and 24.2 second ahead of Marco Bertsch.

Also in the ladies’ U-13 category, the victory went to a Czekala: Alena finished 17.4 seconds ahead of runner-up Julia Biffi, Celina Wasser claimed the third position 30.2 seconds after the winner.

Sebastian Østvold took the win in the U-16 category. After ranking fourth in the ski jumping on the K66 hill, the Norwegian worked his way to the head of the field in the 3 km cross-country run and finally took the win 21.3 seconds ahead of Pascal Müller and his brother Benjamin Østvold. 

In the category „junior men“, the victory went to Luca von Grünigen. Mario Anderegg claimed the second position, finishing 7.6 seconds later than the winner. The third position was held by Sandro Hauswirth, +00:50.0.

Source: fis-ski.com