Large Hill, Individual, Men

The Austrian home crowd hoped for revenge on the Large Bergisel hill after the double East German victory in the Normal hill in Seefeld one week earlier. And the audience went wild when the 17-year old Austrian wonderboy Toni Innauer delivered a perfect first jump, 102.5 m, the longest in the competition. With high style notes he was in a clear lead, 7.7 points ahead of the East German silver medalist from the normal hill, Jochen Danneberg. Danneberg jumped 102.0 m, but a poor landing gave him low style points. With Karl Schnabel in third, veteran Reinhold Bachler in fourth, and Hans Wallner in seventh place, everything looked good for Austria, even if the East Germans had all their four jumpers among the ten best.

In the second round, the duel between the two leading ski jumping nations came to a climax. Bernd Eckstein from East Germany, lying fifth after the first round, took an early lead with a jump of 91.5, but Wallner brought the lead back to Austria with 92.5 m. Then Bachler jumped 91.0 m, bettering Wallner’s total points by 0.5, and Austria now held the first two spots. But Henry Glaß countered back for Eastern Germany. Lying tenth after the first round, he produced the best jump of the round with 97.0 m. The gold medalist from the normal hill, Hans-Georg Aschenbach, disappointed with 89.0 m, placing fifth to that point. Everybody’s eyes were then focused on the young Innauer. He jumped 91.0 m, a little disappointing to the crowd, but due to his excellent first jump, he brought the lead back to Austria. Danneberg was next, but he could only jump 89.5 m and was behind both Innauer and Glaß. The last of the favorites to jump was Schnabl, third after the first round, seven points behind Innauer. Could he secure an Austrian double? The 21-year old from Villach did. After copying Glaß’s length and style points, he won the gold medal, beating Innauer by 1.9 points. The Austrians had countered back, won a double and, with the other jumpers placing fourth and fifth, had their revenge on East Germany. The German quartet placed 3-4-7-8, meaning that the top eight placements were taken by jumpers from Austria and East Germany, a feat still unique in the history of ski jumping. Schnabl and Innauer ended their successful season by taking another double at Holmenkollen, this time with the best East German Danneberg a distant seventh.