The men's normal hill individual ski jumping competition for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada was held on 12 and 13 February 2010 at Whistler Olympic Park in Whistler, British Columbia. It was the first medal event of the 2010 Games.
Sixty-one athletes took part in the qualifying round of the competition, from which 50 athletes advanced to the two competition rounds. Swiss athlete Simon Ammann had the longest jumps in both competition rounds, winning the gold medal. The silver medal was won by Polish jumper Adam Małysz who had the third best results in both the first and second competition rounds. German jumper Michael Uhrmann was in second place following the first jump, but did poorly on his second jump and ended up fifth in the overall standings. Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria moved up from seventh place to win the bronze medal after jumping a full longer on his second attempt.
Background
The men's normal hill individual ski jumping competition for the 2010 Winter Olympics was held on 12 and 13 February 2010 at Whistler Olympic Park in Whistler, British Columbia. It was the first medal event of the 2010 Games.
A normal hill in ski jumping is defined as a jump in which the width of the hill ranges from to . Skiers ski down a sloped ramp, which then turns flat into a takeoff jump, and complete their jump on a landing slope. The rules of international ski jumping competitions, set by the governing body for ski jumping, the Fédération Internationale de Ski, award points based on two factors: distance and judge's score. Distance is measured from the edge of the takeoff ramp to the point where the jumper first touches the landing slope. The three judges are able to award up to 20 points each, for a total of 60 points. The judge's scores are based on a variety of factors including the timing of the takeoff, the skier's ability to carry out the movements involved in the jump, and their stability in the air.
The field
Allocation of slots in the Olympic ski jumping competition was based upon the World Ranking List (WRL) consisting of Ski Jumping World Cup and Grand Prix points, followed by Continental Cup Standings from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 Ski Jumping World Cup, with no nation being allowed more than five skiers.
Norway's Lars Bystøl was the defending Olympic champion on the normal hill, but he retired after the 2007-08 season and therefore did not participate in the 2010 Games. However, The 2006 large hill gold medalist, Austrian Thomas Morgenstern was present. Morgenstern had won the last scheduled normal hill event of the World Cup (on 14 December 2007 in Villach, Austria), and was expected to be among the strongest competitors in the event. The last World Cup event in this discipline took place on 8 March 2009 at Lahti, Finland (though it was originally scheduled to be a large hill event) and was won by Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria. Although a relative newcomer to the sport, having only started competing in 2005-06, Schlierenzauer entered the competition with thirty-five World Cup victories under his belt.
Other competitors expected to finish strongly included Poland's Adam Małysz and Finland's Janne Ahonen, the latter of whom had come out of retirement in hopes of winning an Olympic medal. Simon Ammann, who had won gold medals in both normal and large hill competitions at the 2002 Winter Olympics but failed to medal in 2006, was expected to be a strong competitor as well. Wolfgang Loitzl of Austria was the defending world champion.
Qualifying
The qualifying round for the men's normal hill individual event took place on 12 February with a trial qualification at 09:00 PST and a qualification round at 10:00 PST the same day. Sixty-one athletes participated in the qualification round, with ten pre-qualified, including all four athletes from Austria. The forty athletes with the highest scores advanced to the medal round on 13 February, joining the ten pre-qualified jumpers.
Roberto Dellasega of Italy was disqualified, and therefore excluded from any opportunity to advance. Norway's Anders Jacobsen did not show, but because he was pre-qualified he advanced to the competition round anyway. The top finisher in the qualifying round was Michael Uhrmann of Germany. His countryman Michael Neumayer had the second-longest jump but placed third to Czech jumper Jakub Janda because of Janda's higher judge's score. All four jumpers from the host country of Canada failed to qualify.