German duo threaten Riiber's run of Schonach success

Jan 14, 2025·Nordic Combined

Julian Schmid (left) and Vinzenz Geiger (centre) are both challenging Jarl Magnus Riiber (right) this season © Thibaut/NordicFocus

The Viessmann FIS Nordic Combined women’s and men’s World Cup seasons resume in Schonach (GER) this week as the countdown to the Nordic World Ski Championships gathers pace.

While Norwegian duo Ida Marie Hagen and Jarl Magnus Riiber, the overall leaders in the individual standings, will be favourites for further victories, Riiber in particular faces a strong challenge from a resurgent German team on home snow.

The five-time overall champion has won his last five competitions in Schonach dating back to 2019, including both last season, having opted against competing there in February 2023 as he nursed a back issue ahead of the last World Championships.

With three victories in the opening seven events this season, Riiber has extended his own record to 76 individual World Cup wins, and also earned two other podium finishes.

But the 27-year-old has not had things all his own way to the same extent as last season, when he won a record 16 of the 19 competitions he entered.

Vinzenz Geiger (GER) also has three victories and two other podiums to his name to sit 67 points behind Riiber in third place. Compatriot Julian Schmid, while yet to add to his three individual World Cup wins, has been even more consistent with three second places, two thirds and a lowest finish of sixth to lie within 50 points of Riiber heading into the first two competitions - a Gundersen and a Compact - out of nine in three venues over the next four weeks.

With Johannes Rydzek (GER) also sixth in the individual standings, having won in Ruka at the start of the season, Germany currently lead the Nations Cup table with 2310 points to Norway’s 2182.

While Olympic and World silver medallist Jens Luraas Oftebro (NOR) has backed up Riiber, a second and a fourth place in Ramsau before Christmas lifting him to fourth in the individual standings, another Norwegian, Jørgen Graabak, is also on the rebound after a tough start to the season.

Graabak, 33, is looking forward to returning to Schonach, where he finished third and second behind Riiber last season and had another podium in 2022.

“I have always liked Schonach as a venue. Even though they often get tough conditions to work with, the organisers somehow find a way to have great competitions with a good crowd.”– Jørgen Graabak

Ida Marie Hagen will also return to Schonach with happy memories of a victory in her previous competition there last January, which launched a charge of seven wins in the last eight events towards a first individual crystal globe.

The 24-year-old has continued her dominance into this season, winning the first four competitions before Christmas to take a 95-point lead in the women’s standings.

Her closest challenger, Nathalie Armbruster (GER), who turned 19 recently, will be keen to do well on home snow where she earned podiums in the last two years, while two-time champion Gyda Westwold Hansen (NOR) is aiming to improve her jumping to rectify a sluggish start to the season which leaves her fourth in the standings, 150 points behind.

After PCRs for both women and men on the HS100 hill on Friday, the jumping for the women’s Gundersen begins at 09:15 CET on Saturday, with the men’s Gundersen following at 10:00. The cross-country events then follow at 13:10 CET (women) and 13:40 (men).

On Sunday, the men kick off the Compact events at 09:15, with the women next onto the hill at 10:30. The men’s 7.5km cross-country starts at 14:15 CET, with the women’s 5km race concluding the weekend’s competitions from 14:40.

Both the men and women will be competing for their own version of the Schwarzwaldpokal (Black Forest Cup), awarded to the leading competitor across the weekend.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR) has won his last five competitions in Schonach, and never finished off the podium in the eight events he has entered there since 2018.
• The defending overall champion has won three of the seven men’s competitions so far this season to extend his own record to 76 individual World Cup victories.
• Julian Schmid (GER) lies 50 points behind Riiber in the men’s standings after three runners-up places, two more podiums and a lowest finish of sixth.
• Vinzenz Geiger (GER) has matched Riiber’s record of three wins, a second and a third so far this season but still trails the five-time champion by 67 points.
• Ida Marie Hagen (NOR) has won the first four women's competitions of the season to make it eight World Cup victories in a row going back to last year.
• The defending champion has won 13 of her last 16 individual World Cup events since her debut win in December 2023, finishing second in the other three.
• Nathalie Armbruster (GER), 19, is Hagen’s closest challenger after two second places this season. She had podium finishes in Schonach in 2023 and 2024.
• Just as in the men’s World Cup, where Germany have three competitors in the top six, Germany also lead the Nations Cup in the women’s standings (1051 to Norway’s 957), with Maria Gerboth and Jenny Nowak also in the individual top 10.

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