Even without the longed-for gold medal, germany’s combined skiers were happy. Satisfied, johannes rydzek, eric frenzel, fabian rieble and vinzenz geiger beamed from the winners’ podium after second place in seefeld.
Then the four sportsmen embraced each other. "We have been dead twice. I am proud of our boys. I am very, very satisfied," said national coach hermann weinbuch after his quartet was beaten only by the norwegians led by the outstanding jarl magnus riiber. Silver has been won, not gold lost, says weinbuch.
Record world champion frenzel, who had put in a furious performance in the cross-country, spoke of a "rollercoaster ride of emotions". After the jump, the DSV quartet, victorious in lahti 2017 and pyeongchang 2018, was still in fourth place, then the actually very strong runner rydzek lost even more ground.
"I don’t really know anything about the last half lap," oberstdorf’s rydzek told ZDF. He was "black in the face", even the weaker cross-country skiers go yamamoto and espen bjornstadt hung off the four-time champion from lahti. "He was so blue that nothing was going forward," weinbuch classified.
But coach weinbuch’s perennial winners did not give up. Frenzel caught up massively, rieble joined the leading group and the young geiger secured silver after losing the final sprint against overall world cup winner riiber. "It was a great race. We are very happy with the silver today," said 30-year-old frenzel, who has already won gold twice in the individual and in the team sprint with rieble at the title competitions in tirol. "I really liked the fact that we were a team," said weinbuch after the three other runners had compensated for rydzek’s weak start.
The starting position for the german combined athletes after the ski jumping competition was anything but optimal. But a gripping race developed in which norway, germany and the hosts from austria, who ended up in bronze place, battled for gold until the last kilometer. "Every medal is special," says weinbuch, even if it is already the 52nd medal for him. At a major event was. At the olympics a year ago and at the world championships two years ago, there was still gold in the team competition.
After a difficult season with many setbacks, the overall conclusion is positive. "If someone had told me that before the world championships, i would have fallen out of all the clouds," said weinbuch. The 58-year-old bavarian "took his hat off" to frenzel, who had been lagging behind for a long time and is the seven-time world champion after the seefeld competitions.