Bjørn Wirkola

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Medal record
Men's ski jumping
World Championships
Gold	1966 Oslo	Individual normal hill
Gold	1966 Oslo	Individual large hill

Bjørn Wirkola (born August 4, 1943) is a Norwegian ski jumper. He became World Champion in Oslo in 1966, winning both the large and normal hill competitions. The 1966 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships were also held in conjunction with the Holmenkollen ski festival, making Wirkola the Holmenkollen champion as well (a feat he would repeat the following year). Wirkola won the Four Hills Tournament from 1967 to 1969, and is still the only ski jumper who has won this tournament three years in a row. He also competed at three Winter Olympics: in 1964 he finished eleventh in the Nordic combined, in 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, he achieved his best finish with a fourth place in the individual normal hill, 0.6 points behind the bronze medalist Baldur Preiml of Austria, and the 1972 Olympic Games, where he finished 37th in the wind-ravaged event in the Okurayama large hill.

For his achievements as a ski jumper, Wirkola was awarded the Holmenkollen medal in 1968 (shared with King Olav V, Assar Rönnlund, and Gjermund Eggen).

In 1971, he began to play competitive football. He played for Rosenborg in the Norwegian Premier League from 1971–1974, and won both league and cup championships with Rosenborg in 1971. The same year he was awarded Egebergs Ærespris (where recipients need to be at top international level in one sport and at least at top national level in a different sport).

Naturally, in the minutes before any Wirkola jump, spectator attention and excitement levels were building up, with appropriate crescendo and forte fortissimo culmination during his flying through the air — inadvertently causing the next participant, regardless of fame, nationality or ability, to jump in the vacuum of tired spectator silence. The common parlance expression jumping after Wirkola has therefore come to refer to situations where one embarks on a task where one's predecessor has done a particularly good job - or where one is unlikely to succeed.

[edit] External links

FIS profile
Holmenkollen medalists - click Holmenkollmedaljen for downloadable pdf file (Norwegian)
Holmenkollen winners since 1892 - click Vinnere for downloadable pdf file (Norwegian)

[edit] References

Olympiske vinterleketer 1924 – 2006, Åge Dalby, Jan Greve, Per Jorsett, Akilles forlag, 2006, ISBN 8272861623, pp. 93–101. (Norwegian)

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World champions in ski jumping individual normal hill

1962: Toralf Engan * 1966: Bjørn Wirkola * 1970: Gariy Napalkov * 1974: Hans-Georg Aschenbach * 1978: Matthias Buse * 1982: Armin Kogler * 1985: Jens Weissflog * 1987: Jiří Parma * 1989: Jens Weissflog * 1991: Heinz Kuttin * 1993: Masahiko Harada * 1995: Takanobu Okabe * 1997: Janne Ahonen * 1999: Kazuyoshi Funaki * 2001: Adam Małysz * 2003: Adam Małysz * 2005: Rok Benkovič * 2007: Adam Małysz

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World champions in ski jumping individual large hill

1925: Willen Dick * 1926: Jacob Tullin Thams * 1927: Tore Edman * 1929: Sigmund Ruud * 1930: Gunnar Andersen * 1931: Birger Ruud * 1933: Marcel Reymond * 1934: Kristian Johansson * 1935: Birger Ruud * 1937: Birger Ruud * 1938: Asbjørn Ruud * 1939: Josef Bradl * 1950: Hans Bjørnstad * 1954: Matti Pietikäinen * 1958: Juhani Kärkinen * 1962: Helmut Recknagel * 1966: Bjørn Wirkola * 1970: Gariy Napalkov * 1974: Hans-Georg Aschenbach * 1978: Tapio Räisänen * 1982 Matti Nykänen * 1985 Per Bergerud * 1987: Andreas Felder * 1989: Jari Puikkonen * 1991: Franci Petek * 1993: Espen Bredesen * 1995: Tommy Ingebrigtsen * 1997: Masahiko Harada * 1999: Martin Schmitt * 2001: Martin Schmitt * 2003: Adam Małysz * 2005: Janne Ahonen * 2007: Simon Ammann

Preceded by Toini Gustafsson & Ole Ellefsæter	Holmenkollen medal with King Olav V, Assar Rönnlund, & Gjermund Eggen 1968	Succeeded by Odd Martinsen
Preceded by Frithjof Prydz	Egebergs Ærespris 1971	Succeeded by Ivar Formo