SCHONACH, Germany (March 6, 2016) - The FIS Nordic Combined World Cup season wrapped up Sunday, with a two-jump and 15k cross country format. American Taylor Fletcher (Steamboat Springs, CO) took advantage of the longer cross country race to set the fastest pace, moving up to finish 23rd. Brother Bryan Fletcher (Steamboat Springs, CO) was 29th. Norway's Joergen Graabak took the win by two seconds over Germany's Fabian Riessle.
In the unusual two-round jumping competition Sunday morning, Bryan came in 29th with Taylor 30th. Bryan put down jumps of 90.5 and 87.5 meters, with Taylor soaring 83.0 and 91.0 meters - both a distant four and a half minutes back from leader Manuel Faisst of Germany, who held a 27 second lead over Akito Watabe despite the Japanese skier’s towering 108.0 meter ride in the first round.
In the 15k cross country, Taylor moved up quickly but brother Bryan, still suffering from back pains, wasn’t able to keep up. Taylor won the cross country portion by 14 seconds, moving up to 23rd.
“The last event is always a hard one as everyone is ready for the season to be over,” said Taylor Fletcher. “But, at the same time, everyone wants to put in one more strong effort. I have always liked the 15k races but the format is always suited to the jumpers as its double jump points but only a 50 percent longer cross country course. I feel that it would be more fair if we did a 20k so it wasn't so heavily weighted.”
While he didn’t have the jump he wanted, Taylor did show strong in cross country.
“I was happy with both my cross country races in Schonach as I laid down some of the fastest times!” said Taylor. “Sunday was a great race as I knew I had to go for broke to move up in the ranking and pretty much skied the whole 15k race as hard as I possible could.“
Bryan, who had been strong in the past few weeks, injured his back warming up for jumping on Thursday. He stayed out of Friday’s team competition and did not start cross country on Saturday.
“Well for me it was not the end of the season I wanted,” said Bryan. “For events like this, I love the longer distance races - they suit my strengths very well. But today I was out there fighting to stay top 20 in the overall despite the back injury.”
Bryan ended up 20th in the season standing with Taylor 31st.
“This season the jumping level was very high and they changed the points to make jumping even more weighted then previous years,” said Bryan. “In my opinion, now it's overly weighted on the jumping side. So it's clear that jumping was our limiting factor this year and that's again what we will be focusing on in the lead up to South Korea over the next two years.”
Both Bryan and Taylor have been strong in cross country, but have been fighting to regain ground lost in jumping all season.
“I always felt I was all over the board with my results in the hill and that was extremely frustrating,” said Taylor. “My racing this year also suffered because of it. I can't count how many times I felt like I was doing solo time trials in the competitions as the jumping was so spread out and the time gaps so much bigger.
Now the brothers look to the off season.
“All in all this season was a tough fight on all fronts but that's what I expected,” Bryan Fletcher said. “I took more time off this spring then previous years so I could recharge and have the energy to build to a higher level the next two years. Already I am looking forward to summer training and approaching things from a new angle!”
Taylor agreed with Bryan, adding, “I am looking forward to the off season and regaining focus as we start our training towards Lahti 2017 World Championships and the 2018 Winter Olympics.”
RESULTS
HS106m/15k Gundersen
