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| Event type

Normal Hill, Individual, Men

Date14 February 1988
StatusOlympic
LocationCanada Olympic Park, Calgary
Participants58 from 19 countries
FormatTwo jumps, with both scored on distance and form.
Olympic Record 91.5 / Jari Puikkonen FIN / 12 February 1984
Judge #1Don BurdickUSA
Judge #2Georges GottardiSUI
Judge #3Karol StrbaTCH
Judge #4Ernie MarchioriCAN
Judge #5Sulo KuronenFIN
DetailsK-Point: 89 m

The two dominant forces in ski jumping throughout the eighties were Finland’s Matti Nykänen and Jens Weißflog and in their first Olympic meeting in 1984 the two men had shared the honours with each winning a gold and silver apiece. Neither Nykänen or Weißflog held the world title, that championship having been won by Czechoslovakia’s Jiří Parma in 1985 but Nykänen would arrive at Calgary as the holder of the prestigious Four Hills tournament. Norwegian hopes were pinned on World Cup holder Vegard Opaas whilst the Austrian pairing of Andreas Felder and Ernst Vettori had been consistently amongst the world’s best since the last Olympic Games.

After the completion of the first round the leader board had a strange look to it. It may have been no surprise to find Nykänen in the gold medal position but the top fifteen included only one Austrian, no Germans from either side of the border and no Norwegians. Weißflog did make the lower region of the top twenty but Opaas, the top Norwegian, languished all the way down in twenty-sixth place. Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian jumpers were the top performers on the first jump with the two nations combining to produce eight of the top thirteen at the half way mark.

Nykänen’s second jump was a copy of his first and no one could challenge the mastery of the twenty four year old Finn. If there was little drama in the challenge for the Olympic title the same could not be said of the other medals with less than a point covering the next three jumpers. Pavel Ploc maintained the excellent form he had shown on the World Cup circuit to narrowly place second ahead of his less well known team-mate Jiří Malec. While Nykänen’s feat was covered widely by the world’s press another jumper equaled him in terms of media coverage. Eddie Edwards was a British ski jumper who had only two years of jumping behind him and was, at 74 kg and wearing a thick pair of spectacles, an unlikely competitor. His two jumps, both of 55 m, were well behind even of those of the next-to-last jumper.

PosCompetitorNOCPointsJump #1Jump #2
1Matti NykänenFIN229.1114.8 (1)114.3 (1)Gold
2Pavel PlocTCH212.1105.3 (=7)106.8 (2)Silver
3Jiří MalecTCH211.8106.9 (2)104.9 (4)Bronze
4Miran TepešYUG211.2106.0 (3)105.2 (3)
5Jiří ParmaTCH203.8102.2 (13)101.6 (5)
6Heinz KuttinAUT199.7105.3 (=7)94.4 (=10)
7Jari PuikkonenFIN199.1105.5 (6)93.6 (12)
8Staffan TällbergSWE198.199.9 (=16)98.2 (6)
9Jens WeißflogGDR196.699.5 (18)97.1 (8)
10Piotr FijasPOL195.4102.3 (12)93.1 (=13)
11Akira SatoJPN194.096.6 (22)97.4 (7)
12Andreas FelderAUT192.196.9 (21)95.2 (9)
13Steve CollinsCAN191.1102.7 (10)88.4 (=25)
14Ladislav DluhošTCH191.0103.6 (9)87.4 (=32)
15Ari-Pekka NikkolaFIN190.7100.2 (=14)90.5 (20)
16Matjaž ZupanYUG190.0102.6 (11)87.4 (=32)
17Fabrice PiazziniSUI188.899.9 (=16)88.9 (23)
18Mark KonopackeUSA188.2100.2 (=14)88.0 (28)
19Ole Christian EidhammerNOR186.792.3 (28)94.4 (=10)
20Günther StrannerAUT186.698.7 (19)87.9 (=29)
21Remo LedererGDR185.294.3 (25)90.9 (19)
22Ole Gunnar FidjestølNOR184.491.3 (30)93.1 (=13)
23Risto LaakkonenFIN183.297.2 (20)86.0 (37)
24Ernst VettoriAUT181.594.8 (23)86.7 (36)
25Masaru NagaokaJPN181.389.2 (38)92.1 (=16)
26Rajko LotričYUG180.1105.6 (5)74.5 (51)
27Anders DaunSWE179.290.8 (31)88.4 (=25)
28Jan BoklövSWE177.885.4 (42)92.4 (15)
29Andi BauerFRG177.587.2 (40)90.3 (21)
30Primož UlagaYUG177.1105.8 (4)71.3 (54)
31Josef HeumannFRG176.484.3 (43)92.1 (=16)
32Ron RichardsCAN175.388.4 (39)86.9 (=34)
33Mike HollandUSA174.692.8 (27)81.8 (42)
=34Didier MollardFRA174.389.5 (36)84.8 (39)
=34Jan KowalPOL174.390.5 (32)83.8 (41)
36Per-Inge TällbergSWE174.289.3 (37)84.9 (38)
37Gérard BalancheSUI173.885.9 (41)87.9 (=29)
38Eduard SubochURS173.683.7 (44)89.9 (22)
39Mikhail YesinURS171.692.1 (29)79.5 (46)
40Emil ZografskiBUL171.283.3 (45)87.9 (=29)
41Erik JohnsenNOR171.180.1 (=51)91.0 (18)
42Todd GillmanCAN171.082.6 (46)88.4 (=25)
43Dennis McGraneUSA169.890.4 (33)79.4 (47)
44Horst BulauCAN167.780.8 (49)86.9 (=34)
45Vegard OpaasNOR166.292.9 (26)73.3 (53)
46Sandro SambugaroITA165.577.0 (55)88.5 (24)
47Thomas KlauserFRG165.194.4 (24)70.7 (55)
48Christian HauswirthSUI164.790.3 (34)74.4 (52)
49Frédéric BergerFRA164.580.6 (50)83.9 (40)
50Virginio LunardiITA162.282.4 (47)79.8 (45)
51Katsushi TaoJPN161.681.6 (48)80.0 (44)
52Shinichi TanakaJPN160.179.0 (53)81.1 (43)
53Vladimir BreychevBUL159.790.0 (35)69.7 (56)
54Rick MewbornUSA158.680.1 (=51)78.5 (48)
55Dieter ThomaFRG154.178.1 (54)76.0 (49)
56Christoph LehmannSUI150.976.0 (56)74.9 (50)
57Bernat SolaESP140.473.2 (57)67.2 (57)
58Eddie EdwardsGBR69.234.1 (58)35.1 (58)