Rosa Khutor: Kamil Stoch won Poland’s first Olympic Games ski jumping title for 42 years on Sunday when he overcame illness to take gold on the normal hill at the Sochi Games.
Stoch, 26, claimed victory with jumps of 105.5m and 103.5m for a total of 278 points after coming to the Games as the red-hot favourite having already captured the large hill world title and taking charge of the World Cup race.
Stoch put in the longest jumps in both the first and final attempts to finish with a 12.7-point advantage over second-placed Peter Prevc of Slovenia with Norway’s Anders Bardal winning bronze.
“In the morning I had serious health problems,” said the champion, Poland’s first champion in the sport since Wojciech Fortuna took gold at Sapporo in 1972. “I thought I was not going to jump.”
“I didn’t expect to gain such a big advantage ahead of the second place but I just did what I’m capable of doing,” he added.
“Both of my jumps were fantastic and I’m really happy that my jumps gave me that gold medal.”
Stoch, 26, added he was set to repeat his success at the large hill to make at double at Sochi.
“I really want to repeat it at the large hill. But once again I’m not set to do anything unusual. I will just do my work and enjoy ski jumping. Hope it will be enough for one more win here.”
Prevc, who is second to Stoch in the World Cup, was second with 265.3 pts. He also said he was happy both with his performance and silver medal win. “It’s great to win the Olympic medal, I’m happy,” he said. “Nobody could stop Kamil (Stoch) as he was the best. He jumped without any mistakes and won deservedly. He produced an amazing performance.”
Bardal claimed bronze with 264.1 pts.
Switzerland’s Simon Ammann, 32, who came to Sochi as the reigning champion at both normal and large hills, which he won in 2002 at Salt Lake and in 2010 at Vancouver, failed to earn a record fifth Olympic gold finishing in 17th.
Defending World Cup champion Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria was a poor 11th with his challenge ended by a first round jump of 96m that left him in equal 18th at the halfway stage.
Triple Olympic gold medallist Thomas Morgenstern of Austria, competing in his first event since a training crash four weeks ago, finished 14th.
