Back to the Norwegian bastion
- Lillehammer up next!
Jumper soaring over Lillehammer - NordicFocus
After an impressive show of Norwegian strength at
the Nordic Opening in Kuusamo, there can hardly
be a more interesting place the Nordic Combined
World Cup could go to on this upcoming weekend than
Lillehammer. The traditional venue of the famed
1994 Olympics will wait with two Individual Gundersen
competitions, a new cross-country venue and a brand-new
concept.
With the return to the old Olympic Birkebeineren
ski stadium, all competition sites are now easily
accessible from downtown Lillehammer and with the
addition of the Cross-country World Cup at the same
weekend, the Organisers are promising a folk festival,
boosting the dwindling numbers of spectators during
the busy Christmas time.
Just the perfect backdrop for the Norwegian team
to try and continue with their tour de force in
front of the home crowd: after always having won
at least one race in Lillehammer in the past three
years, the pressure definitely is on for local hero
Mikko Kokslien and his teammates Joergen Graabak,
Haavard Klemetsen, Magnus Krog and World Cup returnee
Magnus Moan.
But the competition is strong: World Champion and
overall World Cup winner Eric Frenzel is also strong
as ever, winning the individual competition in Kuusamo
in his classic calm and confident style of the last
season. Jason Lamy Chappuis is known to be quite
low-key and then pounce mercilessly in the best
moment and the Austrian team which hasn't presented
itself in shining shape last weekend will have an
agenda to change that as fast as possible.
So, the goals are set, the stakes are high and it's
safe to say there will be one more exciting, nail-biting,
perfect Nordic Combined weekend coming up!