Combined geiger surprises with second place

The youngest has outstripped his well-known colleagues. Vinzenz geiger has catapulted himself to second place in the seefeld triple in the nordic combined with a brilliant 10-kilometer run.

Behind the once again victorious japanese akito watabe, the 20-year-old will start the decisive day on sunday with two jumps and the unusual 15 kilometers, which he has never run in competition before.

"Someone has to come through. And if it’s vinzenz, then it’s vinzenz," said national coach hermann weinbuch, seeming unsurprised. After a good jump and seventh place the athlete from oberstdorf should keep up with the norwegians jan schmid and espen andersen who are running in a group with him and use the opportunity to pass them in the final sprint. Geiger did all that, but no one expected him to storm to second place right away.

"I attacked at the start and suddenly realized that second place was still possible. Then I got everything out of me," said geiger, who does not want to think about a podium finish in the triple classification: "I have to jump well twice on sunday and then run 15 kilometers. Everything is possible."

Fabian rieble was actually expected to take second place. After the jumping, the man from the black forest was in third place, just one minute behind the second-placed norwegian jarl magnus riiber, a rather weak runner. Rieble caught up steadily in the first rounds, but in the last round he was not only overtaken but also caught up by the geiger group. "I don’t know what the reason was. Maybe he had a skiing problem. At least we thought that he would catch up with riiber and shorten the gap with watabe. Unfortunately it didn’t work out", said weinbuch.

He was again concerned about the jumping form of his top athletes eric frenzel and johannes rydzek. They are currently not able to show their potential on the hill as usual. "It’s details, they just need to have a sense of achievement. Then they get their heads out of the clouds and are back on top," weinbuch remarked. The coach has nothing to criticize about the running form. "We are fully involved in this and are also superior to the norwegians. Watabe is jumping away from us all at the moment, but whether he can keep his form until the olympics, we’ll have to wait and see," said weinbuch.