August 20, 2018 (Oberwiesenthal, GER) – American Tara Geraghty-Moats made history winning her first, and the USA’s first, women’s Nordic Combined event at the inaugural Summer Grand Prix in Oberwiesenthal, Germany on Aug. 19. Once a again Geraghty-Moats, 25, was the fasted skier and dominated the Gundersen, HS 106, 4.5 Km competition.

“I had never jumped here before or competed in Nordic Combined here before,” commented Geraghty-Moats, who claimed her second consecutive podium. “The second day I feel like everything came together. I felt much more on top of things on the ski jump and was rewarded with a little bit easier of a ski so I didn’t have to fight so hard to be on the podium.” From West Fairlee, VT, the talented Geraghty-Moats skis out of the New York Ski Education Foundation (NYSEF) Club.

Geraghty-Moats dominates, Rydzek sprints in Oberwiesenthal
FIS Nordic Combined Report

The Ladies’ event ended with a dominating win for yesterday’s second-placed American Tara Geraghty-Moats. In the men’s competition, Johannes Rydzek had to fight until the last metre to keep Austria’s Mario Seidl off his back.

Draw in the overall SGP rankings
Tara Geraghty-Moats took the win in the second Ladies’ Individual Gundersen event in Oberwiesenthal. The American showed her cross-country prowess after a good jump and ended her race one minute and 14 seconds ahead of Russia’s Stefaniya Nadymova. Jenny Nowak finished third again, +1:29.2 after the American.

The jumping event shook yesterday’s ranking up quite a bit with Germany’s Jenny Nowak taking a narrow lead over Geraghty-Moats (94.5 m) and Lisa Hirner (95 m), who shared the second intermediate position with 106.1 points each. This meant a four-second delay on Nowak, who had shown 96 metres (107.1 p.).

In the race, Geraghty-Moats was never in any real danger of losing the victory after she left Hirner, Nadymova and Nowak behind in the first lap of the race. The Russian and the German skied together for most of the second round but going out on the third lap, Nadymova emerged as the stronger roller-skier and put some distance between her and the local hero. Even though beaten, Nowak did not give up and finished the race just 15 seconds after Nadymova.

In the overall ranking, this meant a draw between Geragthy-Moats and Nadymova who both ended the short summer series with a victory and a second place. With 180 points each, the American and the Russian split the honours. Jenny Nowak ended the summer on rank three with a total of 120 points.

Close call in the men’s competition
Johannes Rydzek and Mario Seidl fought until the last metres but in the end, the German celebrated the first individual victory of the summer 2018. Only 0.3 seconds separated the German and the Austrian at the finish line. Local hero Eric Frenzel had the crowd roaring for his third place, +0:24 seconds behind his teammate.

Franz-Josef Rehrl repeated his amazing jumping performance of the previous day and had a narrow lead of 2 seconds going out in the track after landing at 99 metres (120.2 p.). Eric Frenzel followed suit and with a jump that was finally on the level the German superstar appreciated. He also jumped 99 metres and with only 0.1 points less, he also started two seconds after the leader.

In the race, a foursome consisting of Johannes Rydzek, Franz-Josef Rehrl, Mario Seidl and Eric Frenzel took charge of things right from the start and the group was only split up in the second half of the race when Franz-Josef Rehrl and Eric Frenzel slowly lost contact to Seidl and Rydzek.

The Austrian and the German, however, showed no signs of stopping and so a finish line sprint had to decide the winner. In the end, Rydzek was the stronger one, as was teammate Frenzel, who beat Franz-Josef Rehrl by a good ten seconds in the end.

The men’s Summer Grand Prix series continues in Villach with one event on Wednesday.

Women’s results here.
Men’s results here.

Women’s Standings here.