Large Hill, Team, Men

Finland’s decade long monopoly of world and Olympic titles had been broken at the 1991 World Championships by a talented Austrian quartet who appeared to also be destined for the Olympic title as well. The Finns and Austrians were remarkably well matched at Albertville and the deciding factor in a desperately close contest was the form of teenager Toni Nieminen. Nieminen’s exhilarating performance made up for the greater consistency of the Austrians though the margin of victory was a miniscule 1.5 points in a competition where the winning team scored 644.4 points. Martin Höllwarth’s silver medal was his third of these Olympic Games. The competition was halted because the jury were afraid that the jumpers were going too far and endangering themselves, and then restarted. This proved unlucky for the Austrian team who had produced some excellent performances before the stoppage.