Skier Kristjan Ilves sixth before a home crowd at Otepää world cup event
Nordic combined skier Kristjan Ilves put a worthy finishing touch on his home World Cup event in Otepää, taking sixth place in Sunday's Nordic combined competition.
Nordic combined involves both cross-country skiing and ski jumping stages.
On the final day of the Otepää World Cup round, the program featured a compact competition, in which not only the points scored on the jumping hill counted, but also the placing achieved, which determines the time gaps for the cross-country race.
The start list included 57 Nordic combined athletes, among them Estonians: Karel Pastarus (1), Ruubert Teder (2), Fred Gustavson (7) and Kristjan Ilves (43).
Ilves placed eighth both in Friday's mass-start competition and in Saturday's Gundersen-format event.
Then at Sunday morning's jumping round, Ilves put in an effort of 93 meters, taking 111.3 points, 12th-best result among all competitors, meaning the Estonian started the ski race 42 seconds behind leader Ryota Yamamoto.
"I think the training jumps at the start of the week are better," Ilves told ERR. "I guess I don't quite have the confidence in competitions to do it just as well. I get the job done more or less, but there's always a bit missing. I can't be satisfied with the jumping, but it's not terrible either."
On the ski course, Ilves quickly reached a pack of skiers, which by the start of the third kilometer had reduced the gap to the leaders to 25 seconds.
While they were unable to catch the World Cup overall leader, Ilves produced his best result of the weekend, finishing sixth at 21.7 seconds back.
Of other Estonians, Fred Gustavson came 49th on the jumping round, Karel Pastarus 53rd, and Ruubert Teder second-to-last in 54th. The trio was unable to pass competitors on the course: Gustavson (+3:19.5) finished 52nd, Teder (+3:23.8) 53rd, and Pastarus (+4:07.1) took 54th place.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
