As on the day before, Riiber took the lead after the ski jumping round in what was the last World Cup competition of 2022, jumping 97 metres and collecting 138.8 points.

Ryota Yamamoto from Japan earned the right to start second on the 10 kilometres skiing course, 11 seconds behind Riiber, after landing at 94m to gain 136 points.

Austrian Franz-Josef Rehrl reached the furthest distance of the day with 98m (129 pts) and placed third, 39sec behind the Norwegian.

But with 11 athletes starting within the first minute, the contest was tight.

While Yamamoto couldn’t keep up with the high speed of the leader and fell back already during the first round, the pursuer group, lead by Vinzenz Geiger (+25 sec) after 5km put a lot of pressure on the current overall World Cup leader in the front.

With strong skiers Joergen Graabak and Jens Luraas Oftebro from Norway as well as Austrian Johannes Lamparter working together, Riiber - seeking a fifth consecutive overall World Cup title this season - was overhauled on the steepest climb of the difficult course.

Geiger took over the lead, eventually finishing 6.1sec clear of his nearest rival, home athlete Johannes Lamparter, who overtook Riiber - who finished third - near the end.

It was Geiger's 10th individual World Cup win.

As she had on the previous day, Hansen, the overall women’s World Cup leader, took the lead in the ski jumping with a 91.5m effort that earned 129.9 points to earn the right to set off first in the subsequent 5km cross-country race.

Rank two after jumping went to Annika Sieff from Italy, who landed at 92m (122.5 pts) and went into the course 30sec after the Norwegian.

Nathalie Armbruster (93 mts, 121.6 pts) from Germany placed third, 33sec behind the leader.

Also as she did yesterday, the Norwegian maintained her lead, having started 5.53sec ahead of Germany’s Svenja Würth, and finished 1:01.4 ahead of another German athlete, Annika Sieff, with Sieff’s compatriot Nathalie Armbruster three seconds back in third place.