Winter Olympics: Schmitt: Marius Lindvik’s perfect flight helps achieve the impossible and beat Ryoyu Kobayashi

Former Olympic gold medal winner Martin Schmitt has hailed the performance of Norway’s Marius Lindvik, saying that his win on Saturday was totally deserved. Lindvik, 23, took gold on the large hill ahead of Ryoyu Kobayashi with the Japanese star having to settle for silver. Ad/> Whilst Lindvik’s win was seen as a surprise to some, Schmitt pointed out that he has had a great season so far and had been one of the most consistent jumpers so far in Beijing.

Beijing 2022Lindvik stuns Kobayashi to take ski jumping gold in the large hill9 HOURS AGO “It’s a big day for Norwegian ski jumping,” Schmitt told Greg Rutherford in the Eurosport Cube. “Marius put in an excellent performance, especially his second jump was really amazing. He made the impossible possible to beat Ryoyo Kobayashi in Beijing.

“Here we can see his perfect flight [gesturing to footage of Lindvik’s jump], amazing style and the telemark. A great success for the Norwegian team and we can say congratulations team Norway.” Schmitt went on to praise Lindvik’s potential and argued that in some aspects this should not have been too big a surprise. “He really is a big talent, he won several World Cup competitions this season.

I think he was the best man on the hills in Beijing so far. “He won qualification on the normal hill, he won qualification large hill so I think after this great competition he totally deserved the gold medal.” Talking about Kobayashi, the winner of the normal hill event, Schmitt said a few small details cost him the chance of a double-gold but ultimately it came down to someone being superior on the day. “He made a perfect jump in the first round, a hill record at 142.0m.