Back then it was a tough race over the Burgstall and in the cross country stadium Ried, when Ronny Ackermann and Felix Gottwald tried to close the gap to Kristian Hammer. Today's competition was dominated by tactics and took an unexpected course.

The result after the jumping was not surprising. The Austrians had a lead of 15 seconds ahead of Norway. Germany was eighth seconds behind the Norwegians. France was 30 seconds back before the 4x5 km race. Only nine of the eleven started teams participatedin the cross country race. After a fall of Yoshito Watabe the Japanese did not take part, just like the Russians after Ivan Panin was disqualified.

The first racers of the three top teams already equaled the result of the jumping portion. After only 2.5 km Magnus Moan and Johannes Rydzek closed the gap to Austrian Willi Denifl. Then Christoph Bieler had problems keeping up with Mikko Kokslien and Fabian Rießle. The Austrians were then 30 seconds behind when Mario Stecher started, but he could close the gap again to Jan Schmid and Eric Frenzel.

At this point the French with Sebastien Lacroix, Maxime Laheurte and Francois Braud were only over a minute behind. But because the leaders, Tino Edelmann, Joergen Graaback and Bernhard Gruber, did not work together, Jason Lamy Chappuis had the chance to also fight for the victory. The overall World Cup leader closed the gap at the final climb. But when Gruber increased the pace Lamy Chappuis had to pay the price for his chase and quickly gave up the fight for the podium.

At first Gruber and Team Austria looked like the winner on the final straight. But the Austrian fell and that cost his team the victory. "I felt to secure and did well on the final climb. Also in the downhill the others could not get closer and then this mistake. I'm very sorry for the team. But still I know that I'm in a really good shape and also as a team we know that we can win", said a disappointed Austrian.

Graabak and Edelmann then were fighting for the top spot. With only a few centimeters ahead Graabak secured the victory for his team. The result in the team competition also confirmes the current situation in the Nation's Cup. The Norwegians extended their lead in this ranking with 1285 points ahead of Germany (1272), Austria (1059) and France (1001).

Tags:  moan graabak schmid kokslien edelmann frenzel rießle rydzek denifl bieler gruber stecher oberstdorf

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