Eric Frenzel could hardly believe his luck. It was more than just a sporting dream that the combined skier would one day pass the great Björn Dählie and become the record holder at the Nordic World Ski Championships. But on Wednesday it happened. The Saxon won his 18th World Championships medal in the Slovenian valley of the hills. Together with Johannes Rydzek, Vinzenz Geiger and Julian Schmid, the starting runner secured second place behind defending champion Norway in a gripping race with the relay.
For the 34-year-old Frenzel from the Ore Mountains, who competes for SSV Geyer but has been living in Flossenbürg in the Upper Palatinate for a long time with his wife and three children, it is the culmination of a great career. He really is the king of combined athletes. One who was brought into the World Cup by national coach Hermann Weinbuch as an 18-year-old, “who has accompanied me throughout my successes ever since”. This community will soon be gone. Weinbuch will retire at the end of March after the last World Cup in Lahti. Whether Frenzel, who was a prime example of humanity and modesty at the time, will leave the competition stage is still open, but more likely.
Katharina Althaus is far from stopping. But the ski jumper didn’t manage the big coup of winning her fourth title in Planica. But this is no reason at all to fret. Because the 26-year-old from Oberstdorf had to admit defeat under floodlights to two better athletes that evening. The new world champion on the large hill comes from Canada and is called Alexandria Loutitt. She jumped 136.5 meters in the decisive round.
The Norwegian Maren Lundby, placed behind her, who set a new hill record with her first jump at an incredible 139.5 meters, but touched the snow when landing, jumped 133 meters in her second attempt. For Althaus, who showed two clean jumps but stayed behind Loutitt and Lundby with 120.5 and 128 meters, it was the fourth medal in the fourth competition. The Allgäu native had previously become world champion in individual, team and mixed teams. Now there was bronze in her last competition. “I’m so happy that it still worked out today. Now the collection at home is complete. I was still missing bronze,” she said.
Weinbuch, Frenzel and the combination: This is an almost unbelievable success story, because in this era, which began in 1996, Weinbuch’s athletes won six gold medals at the Olympics and 15 world titles. Frenzel alone can call himself a three-time Olympic champion and seven-time world champion. He also won the overall World Cup five years in a row between 2012 and 2017. Weinbuch was spoiled for choice and had to send the message to one of his five strong athletes: “You’re not in it, I’ll take a medal away from you.” It was nuances that made the difference after the training jumps.
Manuel Faißt, who finished fifth in the individual race, fell victim to the cut. Rydzek and Frenzel made it into the team around Schmid, the silver man in the individual and in the mixed team, and Geiger, the Olympic champion in Beijing. So Frenzel was allowed to start, and when he landed after 123.5 meters, he was satisfied, “although three or four meters more could have been done. But Julian pulls it off again.” And indeed: Schmid showed the second-longest jump of the entire competition with 137 meters. Individual World Champion Jarl Magnus Riiber flew two meters further than Schmid, which meant in the overall addition: The defending champions went into the cross-country ski run with a lead of 20 seconds over Austria, the German quartet was 23 seconds behind the Scandinavians.
Eric Frenzel (lr), Vinzenz Geiger, Johannes Rydzek and Julian Schmid: Silver in the team
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Image: dpa
It was gratifying that not only at the ski jump but also around the cross-country arena more spectators than usual came to the Valley of the Jumps. The mood on Wednesday, on the day when four Norwegian cross-country skiers, Simen Hegstad Krueger, Harald Oestberg Amundsen, Hans Christer Holund and Johannes Hoesflot Kläbo, took the first four places in the 15-kilometer freestyle race and Friedrich Moch as the best German with 68 Seconds behind finished eighth, finally had features that were halfway ready for the World Cup. “We’re geared towards gold,” was Weinbuch’s slogan and sent Frenzel, Geiger, Rydzek and Schmid onto the track one after the other.
“Eric can do something good on the Norwegians, Vinzenz should do something – and finally Julian. It would be a dream if he could start with a ten-second lead.” Nothing came of the lead, because after Frenzel had completely caught up the gap, Schmid and Riiber went the last five kilometers on an equal footing. The Norwegian even braked again to give Schmid the lead for the tactics that now followed. The race went into its most exciting phase, because the Austrian Johannes Lamperter and the French Marco Heinis also caught up, but were left behind again.
In the last hairpin bend just before the finish, Riiber made the decisive attack and repeatedly stepped on Schmid’s skis. Weinbuch saw this as unsportsmanlike. “That did not please me. We gambled without end,” said the national coach about the strategy. “But a beef is washed with all waters.” Nevertheless, the Germans lodged a protest, which was rejected. Frenzel was “very, very happy with this silver medal. I fought hard to have this moment. We knew that Riiber wasn’t anyone else.” We’ve known for a long time who Frenzel is – and even more since Wednesday: He’s the record holder at the Nordic World Ski Championships. A true, worthy king of combined athletes.
