Just one weekend after the start of the NC SGP was the final in Oberstdorf. It’s always nice to be in Oberstdorf, it’s a very lovely place! I drove to Oberstdorf on Thursday after school, that’s why I missed the official training and the PCR.  On Friday evening was the first competition. A normal Gundersen with the 50 best starters of Villach, because it was a test of a new format for the winter - the weekend challenge which consists of 3 competitions.  In this case 1 comp in Villach and two comps in Oberstdorf.

Result 1st competition Oberstdorf:

1.       Gruber (AUT)

2.       Schmid (NOR)

3.       A.Watabe (JPN)

The second comp on Saturday was an individual Gundersen 15km. So we saw only the best 30 athletes, 2 jumps and after that a 15km race! The race was not really exciting because almost everyone had a huge deficit after the jumping. Only the best ten athletes after jumping started normal and most of them had also a huge deficit. The rest started together because they were more than 3:30 minutes  behind and the leaders finished almost their first lap. It was the first time that I saw a 15km race and I really have to say that I didn’t liked it.

Results 2nd competition Oberstdorf:

1.       Rydzek (GER)

2.       A.Watabe (JPN)

3.       Gruber (AUT)

In the end we had two overall winners of the SGP : Gruber and Watabe! Rydzek became third.

The two races in Oberstdorf were in the evening so I had enough time to do some other things. On Friday I’ve been to the Breitachklamm in the morning and in the afternoon I was walking through the city. On Saturday I went up to the top of the Nebelhorn with the Nebelhornbahn! That was really amazing and impressive.

You can already found photos of the first comp in Oberstdorf, the rest is coming soon. My personal summer season is over now and I’m already looking forward to the upcoming winter. Next stop will be the first competition of the skijumping season in Klingenthal. Can’t wait for it. 

Now it’s time to give a summary of the Nordic Combined SGP. The SGP started in Oberwiesenthal. Two training rounds and the PCR were planned on Saturday morning. It was really windy so it already took some time for the first training. There were a lot of wind breaks and so they decided to cancel the second training. The first training was followed by the PCR which lasted more than two hours. Actually I wanted to eat something in the city in the break between training and Team Sprint but due to the delay I decided to eat something at the hill because it takes some time to walk up to the hill.

In the afternoon we saw the jumping round of the Team Sprint. It was still windy but we hadn’t much windbreaks. We saw many short jumps because of the wind. The skijumping was followed by the skiroller race through the city (2x 7,5km) which was really exciting. Japan, Germany and Austria were leading the race from the beginning on and in the end Austria captured the victory.

Top 6 Team Sprint:

1.       Austria I: Gruber/Bieler

2.       Japan I: Watabe/Minato

3.       Germany I: Frenzel/Rydzek

4.       Norway I: Moan/Schmid

5.       Slovenia I: Berlot/Jelenko

6.       Austria II: Lemmerer/Seidl

The second competition in Oberwiesenthal on Sunday was a Individual Gundersen. It was raining all day long so I wasn’t able to take as many good photos as usual, but there are still enough good ones. :)

Top 3 Individual Gundersen:

1.       Watabe (JPN)

2.       Dvorak (CZE)

3.       Rydzek (GER)

All photos from Oberwiesenthal can be found in the Nordic Combined section. A report of the SGP final in Oberstdorf and the photos are coming soon!