WHISTLER, British Columbia, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Simon Ammann of Switzerland established himself as the most dominant ski jumper in Olympic history Saturday with his fourth career gold-medal performance.
Ammann jumped seven meters farther than anyone else in his first attempt to put away his challengers in the large hill competition and had the best leap as well in the second round to complete a sweep of the individual ski jumping events at the Vancouver Games.
He did the same thing at Salt Lake City in 2002. Not only are his four gold medals the most ever in Olympic ski jumping, they are the most by any athlete from Switzerland in either the Summer or Winter Olympics.
Ammann had won the first gold medal awarded in these Olympics on the normal hill one week earlier.
The silver and bronze medal winners from that event also repeated on the large hill.
Adam Malysz of Poland finished second and Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria was third.
It marked the first time in Olympic history the finish was the same on both the normal and large hills. The same three jumpers won the medals in both events in 1964 at Innsbruck, but they did not finish in the same order.
Ammann jumped 144 meters on his first attempt and 138 on his second. His overall point total was 283.6. Malysz received 269.4 points and Schlierenzauer picked up 262.2.
Schlierenzauer vaulted from fifth to third place with his final jump.
