Matti Nykänen

Finnish ski jumper nicknamed 'The Flying Finn,' widely regarded as the greatest in his sport's history after becoming the first jumper to win three gold medals at a single Winter Olympics.

Matti Ensio Nykänen was born on 17 July 1963 in Jyväskylä, Finland, and began training intensively at age nine, making thousands of jumps a year despite an unorthodox build that experts believed acted like a sail, carrying him further through the air than his rivals. At 17 he won both the junior world title and the Finnish large hill championship, and by 1983 had become World Cup overall champion for the first time. At the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, Nykänen won gold on the large hill by 17.5 points - the largest margin in Olympic ski jumping history at the time - and silver on the normal hill behind East Germany's Jens Weissflog. His defining moment came at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, where he became the first ski jumper ever to win gold on both hills at a single Games, plus a third gold in the inaugural team event, making him, alongside speed skater Yvonne van Gennip, the most decorated athlete of those Games. His victory margins of 17.0 and 16.1 points in the normal and large hill were so large that his lead exceeded the gap between second and tenth place in both events. Across his career, Nykänen won five World Championship medals (four gold), four World Cup overall titles - a men's record shared with Poland's Adam Małysz - and the Four Hills Tournament twice, along with a ski flying world record of 191 metres in 1985. He retired in 1991 after a disappointing 50th-place finish at that year's World Championships. His later life was marked by serious personal difficulties, including convictions for aggravated assault in 2004 and 2009, alongside a brief career as a pop singer that made him one of Finland's most recognizable, if controversial, celebrities. He died on 4 February 2019 at his home in Lappeenranta from pancreatitis and pneumonia, aged 55.

Unorthodox but supremely effective jumper known for exceptional distance and aerodynamic stability rather than conventional technique or speed

Widely regarded as the greatest ski jumper in history for his technical dominance and record-setting margins of victory, though his later life was marked by significant personal and legal difficulties that were extensively covered in Finnish media

• 4x Olympic Gold Medalist (1984, 1988x3)
• First ski jumper to win 3 golds at one Olympics (1988)
• 5x World Championship Medalist (4 gold)
• Record 4x World Cup Overall Champion