Team, Men

The pre-tournament favourites were Germany and Norway, with Austria as an outside chance of the title. Norway had won the World Championship team prize in both 2019 and 2021, while Germany were the reigning Olympic Champions from PyeongChang 2018.

The ski jumping element of the competition was pretty close with the three favourites being close together, and with Japan within 12 seconds. France was fifth, almost one and a half minutes behind. The best jumper was Austrian Franz-Josef Rehrl, ahead of his countryman Johannes Lamparter and the German Julian Schmid. The German veteran Eric Frenzel was back on the team after his Covid quarantine, and he replaced another veteran Johannes Rydzek.

Austria’s Rehrl went out hard at the front on the first leg, but at the end of the leg just four seconds separated the first four teams. It remained close on the second lap. Germany put Frenzel on to contest the third leg. Normally regarded as one of the best skiers it was, however, the Norwegian Jens Lurås Oftebro who showed his strength on this leg and built up a 10-second lead after his 5 km, on what was the fastest leg of the day. Norway led ahead of Japan and Austria, with Germany 30 seconds behind after Frenzel had “hit the wall”.

Norway had the double medallist Jørgen Graabak to go on the last leg, and it soon became apparent to the other teams that the fight for gold was over and there were just the other medal places to fight for. Germany’s Vinzenz Geiger, the Normal Hill/10km champion, set off hard and got level with Japan and Austria after about 17 km. After the first lap of the last leg, Norway had amassed a 43-second lead, and the three teams behind focussed on the battle for silver.

Entering the stadium Geiger started to break away but Yamamoto stayed with him. Austria faded slightly and in the final 100 metres, Yamamoto fought hard to catch Geiger but could not get up for the silver and they had to settle for bronze. However, it was Norway who reigned supreme in Nordic Combined at Beijing 2022, as they won two gold and two silver medals with Jørgen Graabak personally collecting two golds and a silver.