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How It Plays Venue 1998 Golds Nuts & Bolts

Critical Moment History Schedule

Outlook Gold Medalists

Venue: Utah Olympic Park, at about 8,000 feet, is the highest World Cup venue in the world. Gusty winds can make ski jumping tricky. The park sits in the Wasatch Mountains, east of Salt Lake City.

1998 Golds: normal hill (Jani Soininen, Finland); large hill (Kazuyoshi Funaki, Japan); team (Japan: Takanobu Okabe, Hiroya Saito, Masahiko Harada, Kazuyoshi Funaki); combined (Bjarte Engen Vik, Norway); team combined (Norway: Halldor Skard, Kenneth Braaten, Bjarte Engen Vik, Fred Lundberg).

Nuts & Bolts: Ski jumping and the Nordic combined, which includes ski jumping and cross-country skiing, rely heavily on the strength and technical control of the participants. The Nordic combined is considered one of the most demanding of all sports because it requires the use of different sets of

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muscles.

No jumping events for women are held at the Olympic Games.

In order for skiers to soar the length of two football fields, they must have an understanding of the aerodynamics of flight and how wind and velocity affects each jump. A highly specialized and spectacular event, the skis used in these events are made of wood, fiberglass and epoxy. Jumping skis are 1½ times as wide as Alpine skis and weigh as much as 16 pounds.

The two individual jumping events take place on the 90-meter normal hill and 120-meter large hill. Skiers are judged on the form of their jumps once they reach the end of the approach, where they spring outward and upward. Once in flight, they keep their bodies parallel to their skis. The skiers' knees and hips absorb the shock of the landing. Skiers are often not more than 10 feet in the air during the jump, as their flight curve follows that of the hill. Participants earn points based on distance and form.

Teams of four jumpers compete in two rounds after which the top three scores are combined to determine the total team score.

The individual event of the Nordic combined features a jump from the normal hill and a 15km cross-country race. The three-man team combined event consists of a 90-meter jump with a 30km race.

Critical Moment: A well-executed takeoff puts skiers in the aerodynamically correct position for achieving a long jump.

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1. Skiers glide down the ramps with body leaning slightly forward.
2. The instant that skiers are airborne, they move thighs forward and keep their skis flat. The upper body does not change position.
3. Perfect flight position is a flat back; the upper body parallel with skis; skis are in V-position, with heels slightly lower than hips.
Landing: Jumpers are required to position one leg in front of other and bend body forward as they touch landing hill; this is known as a "telemark" landing.

History: As is the case with other Nordic sports, ski jumping was introduced to the United States by Scandinavian immigrants. Eight years after Norwegian immigrants built a ski jump in 1882 in Berlin, N.H., the Nansen Ski Club was formed in honor of explorer Fridtjof Nansen of Norway. The club hosted jumping meets into the 1970s and remains the nation's oldest continuously operating club. Jumping distances grew dramatically between the first major jumping event in Oslo in 1879, during which the winner made a 66-foot jump, and 20 years later, when that distance almost doubled to 117 feet. Henry Hall, a Norwegian immigrant, shattered that record in 1917, by jumping 203 feet at Steamboat Springs, Col.

Ski jumping has been included in the Winter Olympic Games since they began in 1924 in Chamonix, France, but it was not until 1964 that the large hill competition was introduced to accompany the normal hill event. World championships for ski jumping began in 1925, and a World Cup tour was established in 1980. There never have been any ski jumping events for women in the Winter Olympics.

Schedule
Date	Event	Time (ET)
Friday, Feb. 8	K90 Individual qualifications	11 a.m.
Sunday, Feb. 10	K90 Individual final	10:30 a.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 12	K120 Individual qualifications	10:30 a.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 13	K120 Individual final	10:30 a.m.
Monday, Feb. 18	K120 Team final	10:30 a.m.
Nordic Combined Schedule

Outlook: Sven Hannawald of Germany became the first skier in the 50-year history of the event to sweep the Four Hills competition, a major Olympic prep. Adam Malysz of Poland won six of 13 World Cup events to lead in point standings. Other top competitors include Martin Schmitt of Germany, Martin Hoellwarth of Austria, and Finland’s Matti Hautamaeki and Janne Ahonen.

Gold Medalists:

Ski Jumping Nordic Combined

Men's Ski Jumping (Normal Hill)
Year	Name, Country	Points
1964	Veikko Kankkonen, Finland	229.90
1968	Jiri Raska, Czechoslovakia	216.5
1972	Yukio Kasaya, Japan	244.2
1976	Hans-Georg Aschenbach, East Germany	252.0
1980	Toni Innauer, Austria	266.3
1984	Jens Weissflog, East Germany	215.2
1988	Matti Nykanen, Finland	229.1
1992	Ernst Vettori, Austria	222.8
1994	Espen Bredesen, Norway	282.0
1998	Jani Soininen, Finland	234.5

Men's Ski Jumping (Large Hill)
Year	Name, Country	Points
1924	Jacob Tullin, Norway	18.960
1928	Alf Andersen, Norway	19.208
1932	Birger Ruud, Norway	228.1
1936	Birger Ruud, Norway	232.0
1948	Petter Hugsted, Norway	228.1
1952	Arnfinn Bergmann, Norway	226.0
1956	Antti Hyvarinen, Finland	227.0
1960	Helmut Recknagel, East Germany	227.2
1964	Toralf Engan, Norway	230.70
1968	Vladimir Beloussov, USSR	231.3
1972	Wojciech Fortuna, Poland	219.9
1976	Karl Schnabl, Austria	234.8
1980	Jouko Tormanen, Finland	271.0
1984	Matti Nykanen, Finland	231.2
1988	Matti Nykanen, Finland	224.0
1992	Toni Nieminen, Finland	239.5
1994	Jens Weissflog, Germany	274.5
1998	Kazuyoshi Funaki, Japan	272.3

Men's Team Ski Jumping
Year	Country	Points
1988	Finland	634.4
1992	Finland	644.4
1994	Germany	970.1
1998	Japan	933.0