(Reuters) – Olympic gold medallist Fabian Riessle will not compete in next month’s winter Games in Beijing after being left out of Germany’s Nordic combined squad by coach Hermann Weinbuch.
Riessle, together with Vinzenz Geiger, Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek, won gold in the men’s team large hill 4x5km event at the Pyeonchang 2018 Winter Olympics. He also won silver in the men’s individual large hill/10km.
The 31-year-old has, however, slipped to 19th place in the Nordic Combined World Cup standings, behind six other German skiers.
Riessle will be the only member of the 2018 team unable to defend his medal after Weinbuch picked Rydzek, Terence Weber and Julian Schmid to join Frenzel and Geiger, whose places had been confirmed earlier.
(Reporting by Silvia Recchimuzzi in Gdansk, editing by Ed Osmond)
