Normal Hill, Individual, Men

The 1982 World Championship was the international breakthrough for a 19-year old Finn from Jyväskylä, Matti Nykänen, winning on the large hill and placing fourth on the normal hill, after he had won the 1981 Junior World Championships. In the Four Hills Tournament in the Olympic season another teenager hit the headlines, as East Germany’s Jens Weißflog won the tournament after impressive jumping. Those two would dominate international ski jumping for the rest of the 1980s, and they had more in common: They were both extremely thin, with a body weight of around 54 kilograms. This represented the start of a trend, as in the following years a rising number of ski jumpers joined the international top class with a bodyweight below 60 kg.

In the Normal hill competition in Sarajevo, Nykänen was in the lead after the first round, producing a jump of 91.0 m with style points between 17 and 18. Weißflog was in second, jumping one meter shorter than his Finnish rival. Another youngster, 20-year old Andreas Bauer of West Germany, was in third place after a jump of 87.0 m, but well behind the two favorites. The competition was of mediocre quality, mostly due to unstable wind conditions.

In the second round, Stefan Stannarius from East Germany took an early lead after a good 89.5 m jump. Jari Puikkonen from Finland, Olympic bronze medalist in the large hill 1980 and runner-up in the World Championships 1982, made the best jump of the day, 91.5 m, and advanced from 21st place after the first round to the top of the leaderboard. Weißflog could do no more than 87.0 m, but took the lead, 3.4 points ahead of Puikkonen. Nykänen, jumping next-to last of the 58 competitors, could secure the Olympic gold with a decent jump of around 86 m, but he failed, landing at 84.0 m, and had to settle for silver, giving the gold to Weißflog. The reigning World champion on the Normal hill, Austrian Armin Kogler, had an extremely bad day, ending in 52nd place. The Olympic champion Jens Weißflog ended his extremely successful season by winning the Ski Jumping World Cup for the 1983/84-season.