Japan's Watabe untouchable on day two of Nordic Combined
BySportsbeat
Updated 27/01/2018 at 18:37 GMT
Akito Watabe gave an excellent performance on day two of the men's Nordic Combined triple in Austria, topping the podium with an untouchable display.
Akito Watabe of Japan celebrates after the Nordic Combined Men's Gundersen LH HS142/10.0 Km competition at the FIS World Cup Ruka Nordic 2017 in Ruka, Kuusamo in Finland on November 25, 2017
Image credit: Getty Images
The Japanese superstar started and finished the race first, with a lead of just over a minute on German Vinzenz Geiger, who delivered a career best performance to finish in second.
Norwegian Jarl Magnus Riiber was three seconds behind Geiger, teammates Jan Schmid and Espen Anderson finishing in fourth and fifth respectively, with Watabe now focused on tomorrow's 15km.
"It was a perfect day jumping and the skiing was quite good, " said Watabe. "I was quite tired from the skiing alone but I'm happy to get a victory today.
"I'm quite nervous about tomorrow's 15km because I lost two years ago and it's going to be a hard race, but I'll put my best on the track."
Watabe won the jumping round with a stellar leap of 106 metres, accruing a total of 140.5 points, the 29-year-old then starting the 10km race with a 25 second lead on Riiber.
The Norwegian skied well but Geiger stormed a last lap to force his way out of the pursuing group and past Riiber in the final metres, justifying his Olympic nomination.
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