A competitive jumping round on the Finnish resort saw Maxime Laheurte, of France, take pole position with a jump of 145 metres which accrued 154.2 points, despite suffering from knee troubles.

Watabe’s closest challenger on the tour, Espen Andersen of Norway, also kept his chances of taking the title alive with the second-best jump of the day, measuring 144 metres which gave him 151.6 points.

Watabe himself posted a jump of 141 metres, putting him 21 seconds behind jump winner Laheurte for the start of the cross country race.

The jump results meant that Andersen had to win the race if Watabe, a silver medallist at Sochi 2014, finished as high as third.

As it transpired the winner of the cross country race was German skier Johannes Rydzek who finished just 0.6 seconds ahead of compatriot Eric Frenzel.

However, this was insignificant in terms of the overall table and the real drama of the event happened lower down the order as Watabe’s crash on the last uphill section put his tour win in jeopardy.

Watabe’s crash put Andersen in the driving seat for victory, but Watabe kept his composure to finish eleventh, ensuring he won the event with an eight-point difference over his rival, who could only finish sixth in the cross country race.

The next event of the FIS Nordic Combined World Cup will start on December 2 in Lillehammer, Norway.