February 23, 2010 (Whistler, BC) – Gregor Schlierenzauer (AUT) just managed to stay on his skis in the final jump of the day to lead
The powerful Austrians recorded the best jump in six of the eight groupings over two rounds, to win by a comfortable margin of 72.1 points over second place, Germany. Norway picked up the bronze, 5.2 points back of second place.
Austria’s combined score of 1107.9 points was the highest in Olympic Team history, easily topping the 984 points Austria scored to win Gold at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Thomas Morgenstern and Andreas Kofler were on the 2006 team and earned their second Team Gold medals on Monday, while Schlierenzauer won his first Olympic Gold (after two bronze medals in the 2010 individual events) and Wolfgang Loitzl earned his career first Olympic medal.
“The last days were quite hard for me,” Kofler said. “I was fourth in the Individual Large Hill competition, but I’m really happy to be part of this team. Today, we were really relaxed and had a lot of fun here. We didn’t expect to make such good jumps and I’m glad that it happened.”
Schlierenzauer’s two jumps of 140.5 m and 146.5 m were so impressive that his personal score of 290.1 points was more than Simon Ammann’s (SUI) Gold medal winning score of 283.6 in the Large Hill Individual on Saturday, February 20.
Germany (Michael Neumayer, Andreas Wank, Martin Schmitt, Michael Uhrmann) used team consistency to place second. “We are very happy that we did this. We wanted to go home with a medal, and we achieved it,” Schmitt said. “Coming in second is pretty much the maximum we could think of.”
In contrast, the Norwegians have Anders Jacobsen to thank for their Bronze after two poor jumps from Anders Bardal, and one from Tom Hilde in the first two groupings. Johan Remen Evensen was the fourth jumper of the Norwegian quartet.
Finland finished fourth without their injured top jumper, Janne Ahonen, and missed a medal by 15.7 points.
For Austria, it was a record-tying fifth consecutive Team Gold at major competitions after previous Large Hill triumphs in Torino 2006, and at the 2005, 2007 and 2009 World Championships.
With his third Olympic Gold medal, Morgenstern joined Ammann, Matti Nykaenen (FIN) and Jens Weissflog (GDR/GER) as the only ski jumpers to achieve that feat. “I feel so fantastic. It is a dream: three, three Gold medals at Olympics! I really can’t believe this. We have all done it together, we are such great friends, such a great team!”
On the other end of the spectrum, the U.S. team placed 11th and Team Canada 12th out of as many teams. Team USA scored 340.0 points with Anders Johnson, Peter Frenette, Nordic Combined athlete Taylor Fletcher, and Nicholas Alexander; Canada achieved 294.6 points with Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes, Trevor Morrice, Eric Mitchell and Stefan Read.