VAL DI FIEMME, Italy — With Austria’s Bernhard Gruber hot on his tail, Jason Lamy Chappuis of France broke away on the final leg of Saturdays 2 x 7.5 k team sprint to win by 16.6 seconds and bring home gold, his third in four competitions at the 2013 Nordic Combined World Ski Championships. After placing third in Thursday’s individual large hill/10 k, the medal was Lamy Chappuis’ fourth of the week.

The Frenchman teamed up with Sebastien LaCroix for the victory, and Austria took second with Wilhelm Denifl. The leader after jumping on the 134-meter hill in Predazzo, Germany’s Tino Edelmann and Eric Frenzel started first with a 12-second head start on Japan’s Taihei Kato and Akito Watabe. The Germans settled for bronze, 43.9 seconds back, after Edelmann crashed just after the second to last exchange.

Japan took fourth (+44.5), Norway (Magnus Moan/Mikko Kokslein) placed fifth (+1:03.3), and the U.S. (Taylor Fletcher/Billy Demong) was sixth (+1:24.6) after starting 1:40 back in 10th. The Americans skied the second-fastest race after France.

“I think we knew before the race that we didn’t jump as well as we’d hoped,” Demong told reporters. “Two minutes, it’s possible, but it’s not really up to us. … I think we had a solid race, but not enough to come back from two minutes. It’s just clear, we just need to be better on the ski jump, and luckily that’s probably easier than to be faster at cross-country skiing.”

Results

VAL DI FIEMME, Italy — Germany’s Eric Frenzel exchanged a wooden medal for gold on Thursday in the Large Hill Individaul competition at World Championships. He was fourth in the opening competition of the week but turned things around starting at the jump hill on Thursday morning. He jumped 138.5 meters for the top-scored performance of the morning, giving himself a 14 second lead headed into the Gundersen-start 10 k. By the finish he widened it to 36.7 seconds over Gernhard Gruber (AUT). Jason Lamy Chappuis (FRA) finished third (+37.2).

Billy Demong led the Americans in 15th (+1:26.2). Taylor Fletcher followed in 17th (+1:38), Bryan Fletcher was 23rd (+2:40) and Johnny Spillane, in his first appearance on the cross-country course this week, finished 30th (+3:09).

Results.