Unfortunately, he was right in the end with this statement. Behind Norway, Germany and Japan, he, Franz-Josef Rehrl, Lukas Greiderer and Martin Fritz only came fourth in the final team competition yesterday.
“The disappointment is huge, you always paint it in such a beautiful way, but it’s not that easy,” said Austria’s goalkeeper Fritz, after he, as a strong runner, let go of normal hill Olympic champion Vinzenz Geiger and Japan’s Ryota Yamamoto in the last few meters had to. Norway (even without top star Jarl Magnus Riiber) had already brought the triumph to the finish line with Jörgen Graabak.
“Fourth place is very inconsolable. I have to be honest, I expected more,” said head coach Christoph Eugen dejectedly. The order in cross-country skiing was actually not a poker game. “The line-up would have been right, but the performances weren’t up to par.”
The red-white-red quartet was just ahead of Norway after the jumping, Germany and Japan were only a few seconds behind. Start man Rehrl then handed over to Lamparter, who, however, like Greiderer, the bronze medalist from the normal hill individual, could not make the difference this time on the cross-country ski run. Japan, in particular, surprisingly stayed tuned. “They were extremely strong,” Greiderer marveled.
The fact that instead of the dreamed-of precious metal you were left empty-handed for the first time since 1998 was a major setback, ÖSV sports director Mario Stecher admitted. “Hopefully we will draw the right conclusions.”
Source: Nachrichten
