Zhangjiakou, China, February 6, 2022: Japan will be jumping – Ryoyu Kobayashi took the first gold medal in ski jumping for Japan since Kazuyoshi Funaki won gold in the large hill at Nagano 1998.
The 25-year-old Japanese, competing in his second Winter Games, won his first Olympic medal, leading a field where other favourites faltered on the men’s normal hill at Zhangjiakou National Ski Jumping Centre on Sunday evening.
Kobayashi scored 145.4 points in his first jump and 129.6 in his final jump for a total of 275.0, 4.2 points ahead of Manuel Fettner of Austria (270.8) in silver medal position. Dawid Kubacki of Poland (265.9) won bronze.
"I can't believe it at all," Kobayashi, a two-time winner of the Four Hills competition, said. "My two jumps were perfect, which I was very pleased with."
Kobayashi set up his victory by jumping 104.5m with excellent style points to post a score of 145.4 points, more than six points clear of the field.
Jumping last in the final round with a huge advantage, Kobayashi fell well short of his first effort but did enough to comfortably secure gold with a 99.5m jump.
"At the last Olympics I realised many things that I was missing so this time I did what I had to do," he said. "This is why I got the victory."
It was Japan's first gold medal of Beijing 2022.