Matti Nykanen
Finland
Ski Jumping
Overall Ranks
#1 among Finnish Olympians
#1 among Ski Jumpers
Olympic Results
1984
Normal Hill - Silver
Large Hill - Gold
1988
Normal Hill - Gold
Large Hill - Gold
Large Hill Team - Gold
Total
Events - 5
Gold - 4
Silver - 1
Matti Ensio Nykanen was born on July 17, 1963 in Jyvaskyla, Finland, and made the national ski jumping team as soon as he turned 18. While he was still 18, he won the gold medal in the large hill at the World Championships, and by the time he was first eligible for the Olympics, he was already well-established as a great ski jumper.
His 1984 Olympics began with the normal hill event, where his chief competition was expected to be Jens Weissflog of East Germany, who was a year younger than Nykanen. The winner was determined by the combined score of two jumps, which were judged by distance and style. After the first jump, Nykanen had the lead with a score of 114.1, with Weissflog at 110.5 sitting in second.
Weather conditions weren't as good for the second round of jumps. Nykanen was the 57th of 58 jumpers to go, so he got to see exactly what was required of him to win. Weissflog took the lead on his jump, giving himself a final score of 215.2, so Nykanen just needed a 101.1 to win, but he came up just a couple of meters short on his jump, and ended up losing by 1.2 points and settling for the silver medal.
In the large hill event, Nykanen didn't allow the same thing to happen again. He took a huge lead in the first round, scoring a 119.1 on his first jump, 13.1 points ahead of Weissflog in second. In the second round, Weissflog took the lead over the nearest jumper by more than 10 points, but Nykanen was once again the penultimate jumper, and he only needed a 93.9 to win. Instead of playing it safe, he again posted the best jump of the round, and won the gold medal by a margin of 17.5 points, the largest margin in the history of ski jumping.
He returned to compete in Calgary in 1988, and he continued his dominance there. He started again with the normal hill, and this time, he left no doubt. He had a lead of 7.9 points after his first jump, then nearly matched his score on his second jump, giving him a dominant gold medal by a margin of 17 points, the second-largest in the history of the normal hill.
He was expected to repeat the performance in the large hill event, which he did. His first jump scored a 120.8, giving him a lead of 7.1 points after his first jump, and he basically just needed to land the second jump in order to win. Again, he posted the best score on the second jump, and came away with a win by 16.1 points, and another dominant gold.
That year, a new event was added to the Olympic program, the team large hill event. Each team had 4 jumpers, and each jumped twice, with the top 3 jumps from each round counting toward the country's score. Nykanen had the best jump of anyone in each round, and his teammates were good enough that the Finns won the gold medal by 8.9 points over Yugoslavia. With that win, Nykanen became the first ski jumper ever to win 3 gold medals at the same Olympics, just a day after becoming the first to win two.
He retired from ski jumping in 1990, and moved on to a singing career. Over the next three decades, he was married and divorced 6 times, and was charged with or found guilty of domestic violence or assault on at least half a dozen occasions. He also battled alcoholism through the rest of his life, and passed away in 2019 at the age of 55 due to pancreatitis and pneumonia.
Nykanen's personal life may have been a huge mess, but his athletic career was phenomenal. He is still the only ski jumper to win three gold medals at the same Olympics, and still holds the record for largest margin of victory in an Olympic ski jump event. His 4 career gold medals are the most ever for a ski jumper, leaving no doubt that he is one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
