In 2002, Swiss ski jumper Simon Ammann, a repeat gold-medal winner at the Olympics in Salt Lake City, was known as the precocious 20-year-old who looked like Harry Potter. In Vancouver, coming back from a very disappointing no-medals showing at Torino four years ago, he became arguably the greatest ski jumper of all time. After winning both the normal-hill and large-hill events, Ammann is the first jumper to take home four individual gold medals. In the large-hill event, Ammann flew 144 m and 138 m in his two jumps, the longest leaps of the day. And in Switzerland’s proud Winter Olympic history, no one has more golds than Ammann. “If Roger Daltrey had the most popular scream in rock ‘n’ roll and Howard Dean the most popular scream in politics,” said NBC announcer Matt Vasgersian after Amman’s win, “then Ammann’s gold-medal ‘Ya!’ has got to be the most famous scream in ski-jumping history.”
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Ski Jumping’s New Heights
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