Winter Olympics: When it comes to fascinating large hill competition, all bets are off in terms of the winner

When the sun goes down and the lights go off men in lycra love to put on skis and hurl themselves off massive ramps. As we have previously outlined, of all the weird sports that make up a Winter Olympics ski jumping might well take the bonkers biscuit. The idea of hurtling down a ramp at breakneck speed with nothing but skis to stop you from become more familiar with the earth requires a certain type of individual.

Ad/> On Saturday morning and then lunchtime a good bunch of those individuals will do battle on the large hill, the marquee ski jumping event of the games. If you though the normal hill a few days ago was a spectacle, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Beijing 2022'She would never cheat' — Ski jump director defends athletes after suit debacle09/02/2022 AT 12:35 All eyes will be on Japan superstar Ryoyou Kobayashi, gold medal winner from the normal hill and defending Four Hills champion.

Kobayashi has developed into one of the most consistent athletes in the sport. But as Kobayashi himself told Sportiva in an interview before the games, all his recent success on the World Cup tour doesn’t matter unless he brings home a medal for Japan. Well he already has one.

A second gold would not only catapult him into the pantheons of legendary Japanese sportspeople, it would be a huge boon for a country that had a golden period in the 90s. The team won silver at Lillehammer in 1994 and then they took home gold four years later in front of rapturous home fans in Nagano. Kazuyoshi Funaki added to the euphoria by winning gold in the individual large hill.