Matti Nykänen


Matti Ensio Nykänen was a Finnish ski jumper who competed from 1981 to 1991. Widely considered to be the greatest male ski jumper of all time, he won five Winter Olympic medals, nine World Championship medals, and 22 Finnish Championship medals. Most notably, he won three gold medals at the 1988 Winter Olympics, becoming, along with Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands, the most medaled athlete at that Olympiad.
Nykänen is the only ski jumper in history to have won all five of the sport's major events: a gold medal at the Winter Olympics, the Ski Jumping World Championships, the Ski Flying World Championships, four World Cup overall titles, and the Four Hills Tournament. His four World Cup titles is an all-time record shared with Adam Małysz and Sara Takanashi. Nykänen remains the only male five-time ski flying world record holder in history.
From the 1990s onwards, Nykänen's status as a celebrity was mainly fueled by his personal relationships, his career as a pop singer, and various incidents often related to heavy use of alcohol and violent behaviour. He was sentenced to 26 months in prison following a stabbing incident in 2004, and again for 16 months following an aggravated assault on his wife in 2009.

Ski jumping career

For most of the 1980s, Nykänen and Jens Weißflog of East Germany dominated the sport. Nykänen won gold and silver at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. His 17.5-point gold medal victory was the largest margin of victory in Olympic ski jumping history at the time. He was also the first ever to win gold medals on both hills at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. In 1985 he flew 191 metres in Planica, a world record that stood briefly until Piotr Fijas flew 194 metres, again in Planica, in 1987. His other achievements include a total of nine medals at the World Championship level. He also won a total of 46 World Cup competitions and won the overall title four times. He won the prestigious Four Hills Tournament twice. He competed in the FIS Ski Flying World Championships five times and placed in the medals every time. Nykänen also won the ski jumping competition at the Holmenkollen ski festival twice. In 1987, Nykänen was awarded the Holmenkollen Medal.
On 28 February 2008, he won the International Masters Championship for veteran ski jumpers.

Olympic games

Standings

World Cup

Standings

Wins

Ski jumping world records

He set five world records in total, the most of any ski jumper in history.
DateHillLocationMetresFeet
16 March 1984 Heini-Klopfer-Skiflugschanze K182Oberstdorf, West Germany182597
16 March 1984 Heini-Klopfer-Skiflugschanze K182Oberstdorf, West Germany182597
17 March 1984 Heini-Klopfer-Skiflugschanze K182Oberstdorf, West Germany185607
15 March 1985 Velikanka bratov Gorišek K185Planica, Yugoslavia187614
15 March 1985 Velikanka bratov Gorišek K185Planica, Yugoslavia191627

Personal life

Nykänen was married six times:
Nykänen met millionaire “sausage heiress” Mervi Tapola in 1999, and they were married from 2001 to 2003.
They got divorced in 2003, and remarried again in 2004. The marriage was tempestuous and gave rise to many well-publicised incidents: The first reported assault against Tapola occurred in June 2000, following a restraining order that was imposed upon Nykänen. In 2004, Nykänen was handed a suspended sentence for assaulting Tapola again. Nykänen had already been accused of assaulting Tapola in 2001, but the charges were withdrawn because Tapola exercised her right to remain silent.
In September 2005, while on probation for another assault, Nykänen was re-arrested four days after his release for abusing his partner again. Nykänen was convicted and imprisoned for four months on 16 March 2006. Soon after his release, he stabbed a man in a pizza restaurant in Korpilahti. In the summer of 2009, Tapola petitioned for divorce a 14th time, but cancelled it.
On Christmas Day 2009, Nykänen allegedly injured his wife with a knife and tried to throttle her with a bathrobe belt. He was charged for attempted manslaughter and held in custody by Tampere police, but was released on 28 December after charges were dropped for insufficient evidence. On 24 August 2010, Nykänen was convicted of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to pay €5,000 in compensation to his wife for pain and emotional suffering and €3,000 for legal expenses. In August 2010, Tapola made a 15th request for divorce.

Assault incident

On 24 August 2004, Nykänen was arrested on suspicion of attempted manslaughter of a family friend after losing a finger pulling competition in Tottijärvi, Nokia. In October 2004, he was found guilty of aggravated assault, and sentenced to 26 months in prison. As it was a first offence, he was released in September 2005.

As an entertainer

When Nykänen's ski jumping career was drawing to a close, a group of businessmen proposed to make him a singer. His first album Yllätysten yö was released in 1992 and sold over 25,000 copies. Nykänen became the second Olympic gold medalist after Tapio Rautavaara to be awarded a golden record in Finland. His next album Samurai was not as successful.
At the end of the 1990s, due to serious financial problems, Nykänen worked as a stripper in a Järvenpää restaurant. The restaurateur was reproached for exploitation of Nykänen.
In 2002, Nykänen made a comeback as a singer and released the single "Ehkä otin, ehkä en". He also gave his name to a cider brand with the same advertisement slogan. In 2006 Nykänen released his third studio album Ehkä otin, ehkä en. During most his musical career, Nykänen worked with professional musician Jussi Niemi. Nykänen toured Finland performing two to three times a week with the Samurai ensemble led by Niemi.
Many of Nykänen's singles were named after some famous quotes by Nykänen, such as Elämä on laiffii, Jokainen tsäänssi on mahdollisuus, and Ehkä otin, ehkä en.
In November 2009, Nykänen began to present his own cooking web series Mattihan se sopan keitti.

ADHD diagnosis

In the early 2000s, Nykänen was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which conveniently could be blamed for his abusive behaviour.

Death

Matti Nykänen died at his home in Lappeenranta, shortly after midnight on 4 February 2019, from a sudden attack of illness, at the age of 55. He had complained of dizziness and nausea earlier that night. He had been diagnosed with diabetes less than three months earlier. The news of his death was widely reported by the media both in Finland and abroad, with many tributes also paid to him by fellow ski jumpers of his time. He was survived by his fifth wife and three children; two from previous and one outside of marriage. In May 2019 Nykänen's sisters confirmed that the cause of death was pancreatitis and pneumonia.

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