Olympics Men’s Large Hill Individual Final medal results, highlights

For the first time in 30 years, a ski jumper successfully defended his gold medal. Kamil Stoch came out on top in the individual large hill event.

In Sochi four years ago, Kamil Stoch of Poland dominated the ski jumping competition. Stoch won both the individual events, conquering the normal hill and large hill for two gold medals. He returned to the Olympics this year hoping to make it four gold medals.

Fate did not align with that goal, as Stoch finished completely off the podium in the normal hill competition. Coming into the large hill event, the 30-year-old Stoch had another chance to become the first repeat Olympic ski jumping champion since Finland’s Matti Nykänen. Stoch was less than a year old when Nykänen defending his Sarajevo gold in the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

In the long history of ski jumping at the Winter Olympics, the Finnish ski jumper became the second to pull off a successful gold medal defense. The first to win back-to-back gold medals on the large hill was Norway’s Birger Ruud, who pulled out wins at Lake Placid in 1932 and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936.

MEDAL RESULT | Ski jumping men's individual large hill

Kamil Stoch

Andreas Wellinger

Robert Johansson

Jumping last, Stoch faced a tall order on the large hill. Andreas Wellinger, the man who claimed gold on the normal hill earlier in the first week of Pyeongchang 2018, looked set to become the third straight ski jumper to snatch both normal hill and large hill gold at the same Olympics. Wellinger flew a wind-aided 142 meters, overtaking Robert Johansson for the lead.

But there were still two ski jumpers left to go after Wellinger. Michael Hayböck of Austria was the penultimate contestant, but he was disappointed upon the landing of his 131-meter jump. That left just one man with a chance to knock Wellinger from the top spot.

Stoch’s jump wasn’t as long as Wellinger posted, but he also didn’t have the wind in his favor. The wind had shifted in the opposite direction by the time Stoch got his chance. Both Stoch and Wellinger earned 57.5 points from the judges, and the German had the longer jump. But after wind adjustments, Stoch was once again the Olympic gold medalist on the large hill.

Next: What’s the difference between Ski Jumping & Freestyle Skiing?

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