August 18, 2018 (Oberwiesenthal, GER) – The USA’s Tara Geraghty-Moats, 25, landed second on the podium at the first-ever women’s Nordic Combined Summer Grand Prix held today in Oberwiesenthal, Germany. Geraghty-Moats, from West Fairlee, VT, was the fasted skier and closed within 1:10 to winner Stefaniya Nadymova from Russia, who won the Gundersen, HS 106, 4.5 Km event.

“It was a dream come true to finally be able to compete in women’s nordic combined on an international level,” said Geraghty-Moats about her placing. “I’m using this weekend to learn the level I have to be at to have success in combined. I made some mistakes today and learned a lot but I came away with a good result and having had a huge amount of fun competing with small but strong field.”

Nadymova and Seidl/Rehrl take Summer Grand Prix Victories
FIS Nordic Combined Report

Russia’s Stefaniya Nadymova added another first victory to her merit list and Franz-Josef Rehrl and Mario Seidl from Austria began their competition summer 2018 in the best of ways. While Nadymova stepped on top of the podium in the inaugural Ladies’ Nordic Combined summer event (she also won the first-ever Ladies’ Contentinal Cup overall ranking last winter), Seidl and Rehrl won the Team Sprint in Oberwiesenthal.

Nadymova stepped up her game on the jumping hill after having been beaten by young Austrian Lisa Hirner in the PCR yesterday. Today, Nadymova prevailed with 93.5 metres (102 p.) and gained an 8-second lead on Hirner, who landed at 97 metres (99.9 p.). Local hero Jenny Nowak claimed the intermediate third position with 93 metres and 97.8 metres. She had 17 seconds to make up on the track.

In the race, the Russian fought hard to retain her lead on the 4.5 km track and in the end, her persistence paid off. Even though Tara Geraghty-Moats stormed through the field, three seconds separated the Russian and the American at the finish line. With 11.11.4 minutes, Geraghty-Moats was the fasted skier on the track and closed a one minute and ten second gap to Nadymova.

Jenny Nowak delighted the audience with the third place and received frenetic applause by the numerous spectators when the crossed the finish line 50.3 seconds after Nadymova.

On the men’s side, the Japanese brother duo Akito and Yoshito Watabe delighted with two jumps of 98 and 99 metres and took the intermediate lead in the jumping part of the event with a total of 233.7 points. Franz-Josef Rehrl and Mario Seidl followed closely with a time disadvantage of only three seconds after showing 97 and 99.5 metres (232 p.). Terence Weber of Team Germany III showed the longest jump of the day with 101 metres and together with Manuel Faißt’s 97 metres, the German duo started ten second behind the Japanese leaders.

The race was the expected tight and action packed affair with a trio of teams leading the race for the first part until Akito Watabe suffered a broken pole and a gap opened up to Franz-Josef Rehrl and Terence Weber that also his brother Yoshito could not close on his laps anymore. While teams Austria I and Germany III stayed together until a fabulous last lap by Mario Seidl made the day for the Austrians.

Behind the two teams a large group batted for the places and ultimately, the brothers Watabe were swallowed by this large group. Johannes Rydzek finished best and put the  Skiclub Oberstdorf team together on rank three.

RESULTS
Official Results Ladies here.
Official Results Men here.