Beijing, (Samajweekly) Norway’s Joergen Graabak and Jens Luraas Oftebro finished one-two in the Nordic combined individual Gundersen large hill/10km event of the Beijing Winter Olympics on Tuesday.
Graabak, who also won a silver in the individual Gundersen normal hill/10km event, stormed to the 10km finish line in 27 minutes and 13.3 seconds for the gold while his teammate Oftebro came second in 27:13.7.
Graabak, 30, was crowned in the event at Sochi 2014 but finished 10th at PyeongChang 2018.
“I passed him and I just said to him, ‘Come on, Jens, let’s go’, because I could feel we had really good skis and we had the opportunity,” said Graabak about working with Olympic debutant Oftebro.
“Jens had the perfect build-up to the finish, and when we were going into the final few hundred meters I considered him the toughest opponent,” Graabak noted. “I got the better position into the last corner and that’s the thing that saved me. If he had been totally on my tail it would have been hard to beat him.”
Japan’s Akito Watabe claimed the bronze in 27:13.9.
Jarl Magnus Riiber, also from Norway, led after the jumping before getting lost on the course and eventually finishing eighth.
It was a good day for them as Norway upgraded its silver from PyeongChang 2018 to gold after winning the men’s relay 4×7.5km event here on Tuesday.
Comprising Sturla Holm Laegreid, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, Tarjei Boe and Johannes Thingnes Boe, Norway clocked a winning time of one hour, 19 minutes and 50.2 seconds.
Norway ranked only seventh after the first leg, but they caught up later. The anchor leg Christiansen’s perfect shooting allowed the Norwegian with one penalty and seven spare rounds to overtake the ROC.
The silver medal gave Quentin Fillon Maillet his fifth medal of these Games, an all-time French record as well as becoming the first-ever biathlete to win five medals in a single Olympic Winter Games.
The early leader Russian Olympic Committee, with two penalty loops in the anchor leg, took the bronze 45.3 seconds behind the winner, reports Xinhua.
After using up all three spare rounds, ROC’s anchor leg Eduard Latypov picked up two penalty loops, which let their almost one-minute lead fade away.
Slovenia biggest winner in ski jumping
Chongli: After ski jumping competitions at Beijing 2022 concluded on Monday, Slovenia has clinched two of the five gold medals, the most among all teams.
Two days later, Bogataj and Kriznar stood on the top of the podium hand in hand as they won the ski jumping mixed team gold in the event’s Olympic debut at Beijing 2022, together with their teammates Timi Zajc and Peter Prevc.
In the men’s team competition, the Slovenian quartet won the silver, 8.3 points behind the champion Austria in the final, while the bronze went to Germany.
Besides the men’s team bronze, this season’s World Cup leader Karl Geiger also won the large hill individual bronze, before which he struggled in the pre-match training and just placed the 15th in the normal hill individual.
