Individual, Men

The 28-year-old Tom Sandberg had been Norway’s top man in Nordic Combined since 1974, when he won at Holmenkollen, aged only 18. He was Norwegian Champion nine times in the period 1974-1984, and to the great satisfaction of his home crowd he won the 1982 World Championship in Oslo. Sandberg’s best Olympic placing was fourth in 1980, but he decided to go for a medal in the 1984 Olympics before ending his career. His closest rivals were expected to come from East Germany and Finland. East Germany had not been able to fill the gap after the great Ulrich Wehling retired, and Konrad Winkler, World Champion from 1978, ended his career after winning silver in the 1982 World Championships behind Sandberg. Their best was expected to be Uwe Dotzauer, bronze medalist in 1982. Finland’s Rauno Miettinen, now aged 34 and competing in his fourth and last Olympics, had silver medals from the 1972 Olympics and from the 1978 World Championships as his best international championships performances. He also strongly hoped to end his career as Olympic champion. However, Jouko Karjalainen, the 1980 silver medalist, was considered as Finland’s best card. He was an excellent cross-country skier, and if he could do reasonably well in the jumping event, he could challenge for Olympic gold.

Sandberg started well in the ski jumping, winning the event ahead of the relatively unknown Soviet skier, Sergey Chervyakov, with West Germany’s Thomas Müller in third place. Miettinen placed sixth and Karjalainen was still in position for a medal, placing 15th out of the 28 competitors. Dotzauer jumped to 12th place and was a disappointment.

In the cross-country event, Karjalainen started one minute behind Sandberg as next-to-last of the 28 competitors, and had to beat his Norwegan rival by approximately 2:15 to pass him in the final classification. At 9 km he passed Sandberg on the cross-country track, but during the last six kilometers Sandberg gave away only 20 more seconds. Karjalainen won the cross-country race by a comfortable margin, but Sandberg placed second and could celebrate as the Olympic Champion. Karjalainen was an easy silver medalist and another Finn, 21-year old Jukka Ylipulli, was a surprise bronze medal winner after placing fifth in both the jumping and cross-country event. Miettinen ended his career by placing fourth, and West Germany’s Müller, third in the jumping event, was fifth, far better than expected. Soviet’s Chervyakov dropped from second after the ski jump to 12th, but his 19-year old teammate, Ukrainian Aleksandr Prosvirnin advanced from 13th to sixth place, the best Soviet placing in Nordic Combined in twenty years.

Sandberg ended his last season impressively, winning the Nordic Combined World Cup for the 1983/84 season and finally winning another World Championship gold medal as a member of the Norwegian team in the Nordic combined team event in Rovaniemi, Finland in March. The Nordic combined team event had been held for the first time at the 1982 World Championships in Oslo.