Just finished watching the finish of the Tour on the Champs live from Paris, which means dinnertime for us here in Germany. We traveled this morning to Oberstdorf for Summer Grand Prix #2 which is Tuesday night. Our first comp was yesterday in Hinterzarten. It is always good to see the whole group in a relaxed summer atmosphere, although the comp was equally as serious as any world cup.

Saturday’s event was a single jump followed by a 15km inline race. This was meant to simulate in time the new format we will be using this winter: a one-jump 10km. The jumping was a great comp with long jumps from all and David Zauner emerged the victor with a huge leap of 106.5 meters on the k95 hill. I jumped 99, which placed me in 7^th position going into the race and starting 56 seconds behind the young Austrian.

The racecourse was a straightforward 2.2 km lap with a few corners and two short punchy climbs. The only hitch was a thunderstorm that rolled in 5 minutes before the slated start time. After a 15 min delay the jury decided to roll it and we all prepared to spend some time on the ground. Early in the race I caught 10 seconds on David Kreiner, another Austrian and winner of the SGP series in 2007. Because of the high speed on inlines drafting plays a huge role, and we quickly formed a swift pack with Peter Tande of Norway, Jason Lamy Chapuis of France, and Anssi Koivuranta of Finland all rotating at the front. The time gaps to the lead dropped quickly at about 15 seconds a lap, and by the 4^th of 7 laps we moved into the lead. Now it seemed we simply needed to hash it out amongst ourselves but it rapidly became apparent that a second group of 15 more was gaining ground at a furious pace. With that information we continued our pace line which culminated in a blistering last two laps with each of the contenders trying to make last ditch break away efforts. Entering the final kilometer I found myself trying to edge out Anssi on the inside of the last corner, he kept me honest pushing me into the cobblestone street border which resulted in a slippery split second confusion. This was all Georg Hettich of Germany needed to make his move putting on a burst of speed putting him ahead of his pursuants by several lengths. After recovering from the near crash I started a no poles all-out sprint past Anssi and David Kreiner, but could not close the final gap and finished 2^nd place about a second behind.

All in all I was pretty satisfied with the day, especially the jump result. The ability to improve my jumping and thus my starting position will result in much better chances on snow. Alright now time to get ready for a couple more. Thanks for reading!

PS: A funtastic fact about germany… I wrote this on sunday and could not find wireless internet until we got to switzerland this afternoon (wed) to post it.

Tags: combined, demong, hinterzarten, inline, skijumping

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