Olympics-Nordic combined-Germany continue dominance with team gold

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By Philip O'Connor

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Germany delivered a superb display of cross-country skiing to glide to victory in the men's Olympic team event on Thursday and complete a clean sweep of gold medals in the Nordic Combined events at the Games.

Norway overcame a poor performance in the ski jumping section to take the silver medal, 52.7 seconds behind the Germans, and Austria claimed the bronze.

Germany dominated the Nordic Combined events in Pyeongchang, sweeping the podium in the large hill individual and Eric Frenzel winning the normal hill event.

Following the team ski jump, the cross-country started as a four-way fight for medals between leaders Austria, Germany, Japan and Norway.

Defending Olympic champions Norway had a poor showing in the ski jumping and started the cross-country skiing 27 seconds after leaders Austria.

The Austrian lead was short-lived, however, with Vinzenz Geiger of Germany taking the lead and building up a gap of over 12 seconds to the chasing pack at the first exchange.

Fabian Riessle, one of three surviving members from the silver medal-winning team in Sochi four years ago, powered away on the second leg, increasing the German lead to 42 over his two laps of the course.

By the time Johannes Rydzek got the last leg underway the lead was up to a minute, and the real battle was for silver and bronze between Austria and Norway.

Rydzek glided over the line to take the gold, holding a German flag aloft, and Norway's Joergen Grabbak saw off the challenge of Austria's Mario Seidl to take silver. (Reporting by Philip O'Connor, editing by Ed Osmond)