Norwegian Joergen Graabak won the Nordic combined large hill event at the 2022 Olympics on Tuesday, but his compatriot Jarl Magnus Riiber, released the day before from thirteen days of isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, stole from him the star by taking the wrong course when he was in the lead.
Graabak won ahead of another Norwegian, Jens Luraas Oftebro, and the Japanese Akito Watabe at the end of the 10 km of cross-country skiing which follows the Nordic combined ski jumping competition.
Thanks to this victory, Graabak now has five Olympic medals to his name, including three titles, since he had already been crowned on a grand termplin in 2014 in Sochi and won the team event the same year. But it was Riiber’s run that really caught the eye.
The 24-year-old prodigy, who was a big favorite in the Nordic combined events before the 2022 Olympics, competed in his first race of the fortnight on Tuesday. He had missed the test on a normal hill, because on his arrival in China, he tested positive for Covid-19 and was placed in solitary confinement according to the health protocol put in place by the Chinese authorities, without being able to leave as long as he had not had two consecutive negative PCR tests.
The Norwegian thus stayed almost two weeks in a hotel room and his training was limited to home trainer sessions. Released from isolation on Monday, the three-time World Cup winner wasted no time or his bearings and flew over the ski jumping competition on Tuesday.
With his total of 139.8 points, Riiber took the start of the 10 km cross-country race with a mattress of 44 seconds on his first pursuers.
“Stupid Mistake”
But after a little less than 2.5 km and when he had increased his lead by a handful of seconds, he took the wrong course in the cross-country ski stadium and had to turn back, losing about thirty seconds into this error. Quickly caught up, Riiber ended up dropping out of the leading group after 8.5 km to finish on the line less than forty seconds behind Graabak.
“It was a stupid mistake, it’s such a shame to show the world how a title shot can be wasted.“, he analyzed after his race. “On a normal day (without having spent so much time in isolation), even with such a mistake, I would have been fighting for a medal, I’m good at sprinting”recalled Riiber.
The Norwegian theoretically retains a chance of leaving China with a medal around his neck with the team event scheduled for Thursday, but he hinted on the Norwegian channel Discovery that he could not participate in this last competition of the Olympic Games-2022. “Let’s see if I make it out alive today. It’s possible that I contracted a small illness tomorrow after what happened. It’s cold and the temperature is a little different than the one I I had in my hotel room”, he observed.