Japan’s Ryoyu Kobayashi held his nerve while his rivals lost theirs on Sunday, winning Olympic ski jumping gold on the men’s normal hill in a wild and unpredictable Beijing Games final. Germany’s World Cup leader Karl Geiger finished 15th in a disastrous performance, while hotly tipped Norwegians Halvor Egner Granerud and Marius Lindvik were also well out of contention. Kobayashi kept his cool to become the first Japanese ski jumper to win Olympic gold on foreign snow, pulling off jumps of 104.5 and 99.5 metres to finish first on 275.0 points. “This season I’ve been able to jump to the image I have in my mind,” said the 25-year-old, who is second in the current World Cup standings and won this season’s Four Hills competition.
“Of course there have been times where it hasn’t gone well but I have confidence that I can compete to be on the podium. I’m glad I believed in myself.”
Austrian veteran Manuel Fettner claimed silver on 270.8 points, while Poland’s Dawid Kubacki took bronze on 265.9.
Geiger came into the event as a strong contender for gold but struggled all week in practice at Zhangjiakou.
His first jump of 96m was only good enough for 21st place at the halfway point, while his second effort of 99m pushed him only six places higher.
“I did my best, it was not good enough,” said Geiger.
“I’m not quite sure what exactly happened and why.”
Kobayashi said there was “a lot of pressure” on Geiger, but there were also huge expectations on the Japanese jumper.
He was bidding to become the first individual Japanese winner on the Olympic normal hill in 50 years, and he said his experience of the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, when he finished seventh, made him better equipped to deal with it.
“I really understood what my shortcomings at the last Olympics were, and that helped me to improve and deliver a big performance here today,” said Kobayashi.
Kobayashi earned a special word of praise from compatriot Noriaki Kasai, who competed at eight Winter Olympics and became the oldest ski jumping medallist ever when he won silver and bronze at the 2014 Sochi Games.
“I was born the same year that a Japanese ski jumper last won gold on the normal hill 50 years ago” said Kasai.
“It’s a gold medal that will go down in legend.”
The unfancied Fettner posted the best jump of the second round to leapfrog from fifth into the medal positions, and held on to claim silver.
Promoted
“‘Expected’ is the wrong word, but I was sure that it was possible,” said Fettner.
“It was possible for 20 jumpers because we were so close together in every training round. I was sure that my jumping was good enough to compete for a medal and I’m very happy.”
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