Normal Hill, Team, Mixed

The mixed team normal hill event was a new addition to the Olympic program in Beijing, having been contested at the World Cup since 2012 and the World Championships since 2013. The most recent World Champions were Germany, led by Katharina Althaus and Karl Geiger and supported by Markus Eisenbichler and the non-Olympian Anna Rupprecht. In Beijing, Eisenbichler and Rupprecht were replaced by Constantin Schmid and Selina Freitag. Norway, led by Robert Johansson, was the most recent World runner-up, while bronze had gone to Austria, headed by veteran Daniela Iraschko-Stolz. The event had been held only once in the latest season of the World Cup, with the positions the same aside from Slovenia replacing Germany at the top.

The event attracted significant controversy in the first round when Althaus, Iraschko-Stolz, and Sara Takanashi, one of the stars of the Japanese team, were disqualified for suit violations, despite having worn the same suits in earlier events. As disqualified athletes are unable to contribute to the overall score, this left Slovenia, Norway and Russia as the top three placers in the first round, while Germany was eliminated entirely.

In the final round, however, two of the Norwegian skiers, Anna Odine Strøm and Silje Opseth, were also disqualified, leaving Norway unable to reach the podium. This left Slovenia in prime position to capture gold, which they did, while Russia was able to move up and claim the runner-up spot. Canada, who had never before won an Olympic ski jumping medal, performed well enough to advance from fourth into the bronze medal position, although it seemed clear that had fourth and fifth-placed Japan and Austria had all of their competitors, they would have taken silver and bronze respectively. The Russian team, meanwhile, won only its second Olympic medal in ski jumping, the first having come from Vladimir Belousov’s victory for the Soviet Union in the large hill in 1968.