LAHTI, Finland Marco Baacke powered his way to victory in the combined ski jump and 7.5km sprint at the Nordic Skiing World Championships on Saturday to lift Germany's first gold medal in the event for 16 years.

Finland's Samppa Lajunen stormed from seventh position at the start of the sprint to secure silver, 6.2 seconds behind, and Germany's Ronny Ackerman was third, according to unofficial timings.

His face encrusted with ice after a magnificent run in temperatures approaching minus 17 degrees Celsius, Baacke raised a fist and shouted in victory as he crossed the line in front of a packed stadium.

His win earned Germany their first world championship gold medal in a combined Nordic event since 1985.

Baacke and Ackerman said they hoped their victories would raise the profile of the event in Germany.

Baacke had leapt the morning's longest jump on the K116 big hill, landing at 123.5 meters to Finn Jaakko Tallus's 123.0 but two extra points for jumping technique gave Tallus a five-second start over the German for the sprint component.

Baacke slipped past Tallus after 600 meters of the opening stretch through the woods and though the Finn stuck to his tail for the next five kilometers he was unable to muster the strength to overtake.

Then as the snowfall began to thicken around the 5km mark Baacke blasted his way up a steep incline, a move an apparently demoralized Tallus was unable to match.

"I didn't realize I had got away immediately. I just focused on climbing as fast as I could," Baacke told a news conference.

"I have never had such a feeling before. My brain was completely empty," he said. "My hopes had been that I could do something like fifth or sixth."

The Finn slipped back to finish fourth and what had been a battle for bronze between Lajunen and Ackerman turned into a fight for silver.

The silver medal was Lajunen's second this year. He was also second in the February 16 combined jump and cross country event.

(Reuter)