Monday, February 13, 2006

Only a Ski Jumper truly knows

As Norwegians tonight will be celebrating the Olympic gold medal won by Lars Bystol in the normal hill Ski Jumping contest, Whitmore Reans Gazette would like to lead your attention towards our neighbour Finland and their rich Ski Jumping culture.

This is Matti Nykänen, arguably the best Ski Jumper of modern times. The Finn won five Olympic medals and fifteen world championship medals during a career stretching from 1978-1990.

Sadly, since the 1990s his status as a celebrity has mainly been fueled not by his sport achievements, but by his colourful personal relationships, his career as a singer and various incidents often related to heavy use of alcohol and violent behaviour. Mr. Nykänen has been in the headlines of tabloids more often than any other person in Finland.

As so many other great sport personalities, Mr. Nykänen's career inextricably combined sheer genius with temperamental outbursts. Once he gave up the sport, the genius remained a heroic memory in the minds of his countrymen, but his continuing and widely publicized follies made him something of a national disgrace. Stories of domestic violence, multiple marriages and divorces, a career as a musical performer (resulting in such compositions as "Hai Hai Hai, mä oon sun samurai", roughly translated as "Hai, Hai, Hai, I am your samurai", and "Vain mäkimies voi tietää sen", roughly "Only a Ski Jumper truly knows") guaranteed more ridicule than respect.

A movie about the life of Matti Nykänen was released in 2006, with Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen cast as Matti. The English version of his biography "Greetings from Hell" was published in January 2006.


2 Comments:

Blogger Den tenksomme Vraslosken said...

Due to legal reasons I cannot comment.

2:03 PM  
Blogger Grillski said...

He was only a child star gone wrong.

10:44 PM  

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