Enlarge image
Olympic champion Vincent Geiger
Photo: Laci Perenyi / imago images/Laci Perenyi
The fifth day of the Beijing Winter Olympics brought two more German gold medals.
The American Lindsey Jacobellis still won gold 16 years after her failure in Turin.
And a German skier lost a medal at the last gates.
It was one of the most dramatic races in Olympic winter sports history:
Vinzenz Geiger secured individual gold in the
Nordic combined
with an irresistible performance
.
After eleventh place after jumping, he tirelessly led the hunt for the front ranks - and was rewarded shortly before the end.
A few hundred meters from the finish, Geiger overtook Johannes Rydzek, who had been in the lead up to that point and who almost looked like the certain Olympic champion.
While Geiger marched to gold, Rydzek even slipped down to fifth place.
It was the fourth German Olympic individual gold in a row for the combined athletes on the normal hill.
A few hours later, the fifth victory for the German Olympic team followed: In
tobogganing
, the
doubles competition
was a safe bet for the German starters:
Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt
won gold after two runs, Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken finished 0.09 seconds behind after two rounds on the silver rank.
Bronze went to the Austrians Thomas Steu/Lorenz Koller.
It is already one
of the
stories of these Olympic Games: The American
Lindsey Jacobellis
was able to overcome a 16-year-old trauma with her gold medal.
In 2006, the
snowboard
crosser gave away gold with a blunder at the Turin Games, but the 36-year-old was crowned when she took part in the Olympics for the fifth time.
In Pyeongchang 2018 she finished fourth.
Jacobellis' success was also the US team's first gold medal at these games.
Drama about
Lena Dürr:
The German
slalom driver
was on course for gold after an outstanding first round.
In the second run she went 0.72 seconds ahead of
Petra Vlhová
, who had been in the lead up to that point, and was able to hold on to her until a few goals before the end of the race.
But the shock at the finish: Dürr finished 0.19 seconds behind the Slovak and was even 0.07 seconds behind third-placed Wendy Holdener from Switzerland.
Silver went to Austria's Katharine Liensberger.
"It was so incredibly close, that's what annoys me the most now.
When it's clear and you're really far away from them, it's easier to deal with," Dürr said after the race.
In the premiere of the
Big Air competition
in men's ski freestyle, Norway's
Birk Ruud
won .
Since he was already the Olympic champion before the last round, he contested it with the Norwegian flag in his hand.
He dedicated the victory to his father, who died last year.
Colby Stevenson took silver.
The American barely survived a serious car accident in 2016, after which a titanium plate was inserted into his skull.
Hwang Daeheon won
the
first
gold at the Beijing Winter Olympics in
short track .
The four-time world champion won over 1500 meters and relegated Steven Dubois (Canada) and Semen Jelistratow (ROC) to places.
Hwang had already won silver over 500 meters at the games in Pyeongchang in 2018.
The race took place without German participation.
You can find the timetable, dates and sports of the Winter Olympics at a glance here.
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