Team Austria wins Ski Jumping thriller in Zhangjiakou

The Ski Jumping team of Austria won a Ski Jumping thriller in Zhangjiakou on Monday evening. In an exciting competition, Stefan Kraft, Daniel Huber, Jan Hoerl, and Manuel Fettner came in ahead of the teams of Slovenia and Germany. Norway finished fourth after a tough fight.

-22°C, changing wind, and 11 Ski Jumping teams that turned this evening into the grand final of the Ski Jumping events at the Olympic Games in Beijing. For four teams everything, from gold to fourth, was possible until the very end. The excitement was even high due to the difficult wind conditions, the fight for gold, silver, and bronze was not over until the final jumper of each of the teams.

"It feels extremely well. It's amazing when all the hard work pays off. It was a very close race, you can be the winner in the end, or finish fourth or fifth", Austria's head coach Andreas Widhölzl described his feelings after the success.
Manuel Fettner could already celebrate his second medal after finishing second on the normal hill. "Four years ago we narrowly missed the podium, now it feels a lot better. A team event is always different than a normal competition. The pressure is not only on your own shoulders but on everyone", Fettner said and added: "I think that every one of us did a really good job, we had no bad jumps. I'm happy for the entire team that we are now Olympic champions."

Slovenia came in second, 8.3 points behind Austria. With the final jump of Karl Geiger, Germany secured the third place, close ahead of Norway. "It was a tough competition. I was focusing on myself and I'm happy that I had a good jump in the second round. I'm happy that we won the bronze medal today", said Markus Eisenbichler, who couldn't stop celebrating after his second jump. "I let all the emotions out. I know that I have to make a good jump, and that's what I do, then I let the emotions out and scream."

Norway was fighting for the win for most of the competition and it seemed that they had already secured a medal, but a lot was possible this evening. They missed the third place by only 0.8 points. One of the top teams had to walk home empty-handed.

Japan, Poland, the athletes of the Russian Olympic Committee, and Switzerland finished fifth to eighth in a remarkable and historic Olympic team competition on the large hill.

The ski jumpers now have the next weekend off, before the World Cup will continue with three competitions in Lahti (FIN).

Full results

Facts:

Austria had won two of the three team competitions this season, but only in the season opener in Wisla, they started with the same athletes as today.

It was the third Olympic gold in this competition for Austria, after Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010. They are now equal with Germany with three titles. For both NOCs, this was the seventh medal in the team competition, which was held for the tenth time at Olympic Games.

It was the second medal in this event for Slovenia, after winning bronze in Salt Lake City 2002. Slovenia was represented by Lovro Kos, Cene Prevc, Peter Prevc, and Timi Zajc.

Peter Prevc won his fourth Olympic medal - after gold with the mixed team in Beijing 2022 and bronze on the large hill and silver on the normal hill in Sochi 2014. He is the tenth ski jumper to win four medals, only Matti Nykaenen (5) won more.

The only other Slovenian athlete to win four medals at Olympic Winter Games is alpine skier Tina Maze.

Markus Eisenbichler, Karl Geiger, Stephan Leyhe, and Constantin Schmid won the fourth team medal in a row for Germany. Geiger and Leyhe also won silver in this event in PyeongChang 2018.

Germany is now the first NOC to win a medal on the large hill in four consecutive Olympic Winter Games.

At the age of 36 years and 242 days, Manuel Fettner is the oldest Olympic gold medalist in the men's team competition. So far, Wolfgang Loitzl held this record, he was 30 years and 340 days old in Vancouver 2010.

This event was the final Ski Jumping competition in Peking 2022. Slovenia leads the medal count with four medals, two gold. Germany won three medals, but no gold, Austria and Japan took two medals, one gold.

Six ski jumpers won two medals in Beijing 2022. Ursa Bogataj (SLO, G-2), Peter Prevc (G-1, S-1), Ryoyu Kobayashi (JPN: G1, S-1), Manuel Fettner (G-1, S-1), Nika Kriznar (SLO; G-1, B-1) and Karl Geiger (B-2).