Ski Jumping-Kobayashi wins men's normal hill gold for Japan

ZHANGJIAKOU, China :Japan's Ryoyu Kobayashi kept his nerve to deliver a solid last leap of the competition and win the Olympic men's normal hill ski jumping gold on Sunday.

In a fast-moving competition, Manuel Fettner of Austria took silver and Poland's Dawid Kubacki the bronze.

Kobayashi, the new four hills champion, had opted against taking his practice jump earlier and it proved a good decision as he had the best jump of the first round for 145.4 points.

The top five were separated by just four points, however, and with blustery winds squeezed together starting positions something of a lottery - underscored by Kubacki rising from eighth after the first jump and onto the podium - nobody could feel safe.

It was a great day for Fettner, the veteran of 36 who has been competing for almost 20 years and was fifth after the first round. He delivered the best leap of the second round for an overall tally of 270.8 points, but Kobayashi did just enough to edge past him on an impressive 275.0.

Poland's triple gold medallist Kamil Stoch, who qualified 36th of 53 for the final after struggling for form and recovering from an ankle injury, surged back into contention with a first round leap of 101.5 metres to sit third, but he fell away to finish sixth.

Germany’s World Cup leader Karl Geiger managed only 15th.

(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, Editing by Hugh Lawson)