Individual, Men

Nordic Combined had been an internal Norwegian affair in the four previous Winter Games, the Norwegians winning all medals, and the event was considered as a Norwegian speciality. It was therefore a great shock for the nation when the Swede Sven Israelsson, in front of a home crowd of 70 000, could as the first foreigner be celebrated as the winner of Nordic Combined in Holmekollen 1947. And that was not enough: Second was the Swiss skier Niklaus Stump, and the best Norwegian Olaf Dufseth had to be satisfied by third place. The Norwegians had been warned.

In St. Moritz the 18 km Cross Country part of Nordic Combined was integrated in the event for the specialists, and the results of the Nordic Combined participants counted for this event. Out of 84 starters, 39 of them participated in the combined event. The day brought another shock to the Norwegians, this time coming from their Finnish neighbors. One of the youngest participants in the competition, the 21 year old and unmerited Heikki Hasu, outclassed his opponents and was almost 3 minutes ahead of his countryman, the more merited Martti Huhtala. The best Norwegian in third place, Olav Odden, was beaten by Hasu with almost 5 minutes, and Israelsson and Stump, both considered as having their best event in jumping, were close behind Odden. Hasu’s excellent race placed him 4th among the specialist, only 36 seconds behind the bronze winner.

In the jumping event the day after, each skier had 3 jumps, and only the two best jumps counted. Hasu jumped safely and won the gold medal with a clear margin. Israelsson was the best jumper of all, but was not able to catch Huhtala in the battle for silver and had to settle for bronze. Stump advanced from 7th to 4th place. For the Norwegians, the jumping event went even worse than the cross country part. Odden jumped badly and fell down to 11th place. Their best jumper, Eilert Dahl, placed 8th in the jumping event and could advance to a 6th place in the final results. The US skiers Gordon Wren and Corey Engen impressed by coming 2nd and 3rd in the jumping event, but were too far behind in the cross country race to fight for a top placing in the final ranking.

Some of the lost Norwegian pride was restored in Holmenkollen a few weeks later, when Simon Slåttvik, aged 30 and coming from the northern part of Norway, won the Nordic Combined with another Norwegian outside the Olympic team, Ottar Gjermundshaug in 2nd place. Huhtala was 3rd and Israelsson a distant 14th, but Hasu and Stump was not taking part. Slåttvik became Norwegian Champion in 1947, but could not raise money enough to travel to the Norwegian Olympic selection competitions early in the 1948 season.