Johannes Rydzek and Fabian Rießle are the happy winners of today’s Team Sprint event in Lahti. The second and third ranks went to both teams from Austria. Bernhard Gruber and Lukas Klapfer finished 18 seconds later than the Germans, their young teammates Franz-Josef Rehrl and Philipp Orter won a photo finish with Team Germany II (Edelmann/Faißt), one minute and 40 seconds later than the winners. 

It was Jan Schmid, not his teammate Jarl Riiber who took the top distance of 128 metres in today’s ski jumping round but Riiber accumulated the highest single point score with his 124 metres from gate 10 (one gate lower than the rest of his group). With this great performance (252.1 p.), Team Norway I took the clear lead after the jumping round and had a 57-second advantage on Team Germany I. Johannes Rydzek had a strong jump of 125.5 metres but his teammate Fabian Rießle landed at 114.5 metres only. 

The third rank went to the pair of Lukas Klapfer / Bernhard Gruber. The two Austrians were hot on the heels of the Germans with a time disadvantage of one minute and four seconds after jumps of 125 and 115.5 metres and a point total of 219 points. Behind the first three teams a bigger gap opened to pursuers Norway II (Graabak/Klemetsen) who started one minute and 38 seconds after Team Norway I. Three more teams were following closely behind: Germany II (Edelmann/Faißt) with +1:49, Austria II (Orter/Rehrl) +1:50 and France (Laheurte/Braud) +1:52.

Jan Schmid and Jarl Riiber lived off their time advantage for the first part of the race but the fast Germans Rießle and Rydzek inched closer and closer until the gap had melted completely. For the last laps, the Germans and the Norwegians skied together and the tactical games began. Jarl Riiber and Fabian Rießle had a very slow second-but-last lap that helped the pursuing Austrian team of Berni Gruber and Lukas Klapfer advance but they were not able to close the gap more than to 20 seconds behind the two leaders. 

Then disaster struck. Jarl Riiber seems to be stuck in a major unlucky streak at the moment because today, his shoulder suddenly dislocated itself while he was skiing his last lap against Fabian Rießle. Riiber tried to push through it and skied on, his face contorted with pain but ultimately had to give up and receive first aid by the team physiotherapist by the side of the track. So Fabian Rießle skied an undisputed victory into the finish. Behind him, Bernhard Gruber secured the second rank and the Austrian rookies Franz-Josef Rehrl and Philipp Orter beat Tino Edelmann and Manuel Faißt in a riveting photo finish for rank three. 

Also in this group were Norway II, France and Italy, all teams finishing around the one minute and 40 seconds mark.

Source: fis-ski.com