By Mitch Phillips
ZHANGJIAKOU, China (Reuters) -Vinzenz Geiger of Germany pulled off a stunning comeback in a thrilling sprint finish to win the individual normal hill/10 km Nordic combined gold medal at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.
Joergen Graabak of Norway took silver, with Lukas Greiderer of Austria securing the bronze in a race that exploded into life on the final lap.
Ryota Yamamoto of Japan landed a monster leap of 108 metres to soar into the lead after the ski jumping as some of the favourites came up short, including world number one Johannes Lamparter of Austria and third-ranked Geiger, who came in 11th.
That meant a start one minute 26 seconds after Yamamoto, whose lead was quickly whittled away in the skiing as he was reined in by the chasing pack.
Germans Julian Schmid and Johannes Rydzek plus Greiderer glided past and broke away in what looked like being a fascinating battle for the medals.
Rydzek took the lead going into the last lap as Schmid fell away, leaving him to battle it out with the Austrian for first place but, after biding his time, Geiger picked his moment to strike and powered through the field.
Graabak followed his example as the pair raced up the standings, blazing past the rest of the pack to take the lead.
They came and around the last bend with Geiger in the lead and, though the Norwegian accelerated to force a sprint finish, Geiger held on to win by eight-tenths of a second, with Greiderer 5.8 seconds further back.
The gold medal is Geiger’s second at the Olympics following the team gold he won in 2018 at the Pyeongchang Games.
(Reporting Mitch Phillips, Editing by Hugh Lawson and Ken Ferris)
