Word: matti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...history of the Winter Games as she took a bronze in the 20 km, the record ninth medal of her four- Olympiad career. Even Britons, whose team failed to win a single medal, could take pride in a new national achievement. Just 47 1/2 meters short of Matti Nykanen's mark in the 90-meter ski jump, "Eddie the Eagle" Edwards' last-place 71-meter flutter meant he had flown three meters farther than any other Englishman. Ever...
...less generous spirit, America's patchy playground directors were so dismayed by their meager share of the plunder (two gold, one silver and three bronze, in contrast to three gold medals for Finnish Ski Jumper Matti Nykanen alone) that they brought in New York Yankees Owner George Steinbrenner to help them harrumph. Promising importantly to look into it, he made noises about cost-effectiveness, dropped a few cold war phrases, filled a lot of newspaper columns and went home. Meanwhile, in front of the Village, one of the enemies of capitalism, G.D.R. Figure Skater Alexander Koenig, 21, politely priced...
...runs before an anxious crowd of 52,000 onlookers at Canada Olympic Park, Matti "Nukes" produced nearly identical jumps of 294 ft. That gave him an astonishing 17-point margin over Ploc, who scored closer to the tenth-place jumper than he did to Nykanen. It confirmed the suspicion that % there are two classes of jumpers in the world today: Nykanen and everyone else. Said his coach, Matti Pulli: "He is the best jumper in the past 100 years, the best ever in the world." The coach then added matter-of-factly, "Matti was jumping normally today, nothing more than...
...probably the most single-minded and obsessive jumper as well as the best. Nykanen first slid off the roof of his childhood home at 7, got his first skis two years later, and did more jumps at 12 than most of his competitors do now. "When I met him, Matti was making 3,000 to 4,000 jumps a year," said Paavo Komi, a professor who worked with the budding star in his native Jyvaskyla. "Now he jumps nearly 6,000 times each year, in contrast to 3,000 to 4,000 for most jumpers." Part of this...
...Olympics has always been a relative matter of little feelers. Eddie ("the Eagle") Edwards, the ski-jumping plasterer from England, spoke for all the Games' odd fellows when he declared, "To have jumped and still be alive -- it's a thrill." As if Edwards were the grand Finn Matti Nykanen himself, the Brit writers have claimed Eddie as their new knight of the woeful countenance (not to mention feeble eyesight and flapping elbows). What choice did they have? Out at Calgary's quaint hall for curling, the Scots were finishing last in another game they invented. It was pretty exciting...