Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HOW IT ALL WEN
HE was the record-breaking ski-jumper who made Eddie the Eagle Edwards look like a crippled canary. Matti Nykanen, the Flying Finn, soared so high and so fast that breathless spectators would wonder if he would ever come down.
“You have to be an angel to jump so far,” said the sport’s top coach Matti Pulli. “He was childlike, almost like a cherub, and that charmed people.”
But as the world marvelled at the charismatic Olympic superstar, Matti Nykanen was battling the demons that would lead to a spectacular fall.
Booze, violence and six marriages led to him racing down a slippery slope to ignominy – and landed him with the title the “George Best of winter sports”.
When the gold medal days were over, Nykanen’s chaotic forays into pop, porn and politics continued to make headlines around the world.
But his descent into alcoholism set the Finn’s fists flying and he served three jail terms for assault and GBH.
In his 2006 autobiography Greetings From Hell, he claimed, “Hell can’t be as bad as my life has been.”
Yet, when Nykanen died this month at the age of 55, the grief of Finlanders echoed that shown in Britain when soccer hell-raiser George died in 2005.
The fans never gave up on their flawed sporting genius...
Matti Ensio Nykanen was born in Jyvaskyla, in 1963. His dad, Ensio, was a milkman and taxi driver and mum, Vieno, ran a fruit and veg stall.
They had three girls but always wanted a son so Matt was spoilt. Aged eight, he was diagnosed with ADHD.
As an outlet for the hyperactivity his dad suggested he try ski-jumping, and Nykanen became obsessed.
“The only thing I wanted was to jump, and to jump, and to jump again,” he said and was soon practising for nine hours a day.
At 18 he won his first world championships in Oslo and two years later claimed the Winter Olympic gold in the 90m ski-jump at Sarajevo.
But it was the 1988 Games in Calgary, Canada that Nykanen peaked.
While bumbling Brit Eddie the Eagle captured hearts and headlines, the Finn won gold in all three ski-jump events.
He would go on to become the only man to win his sport’s five major titles. But success came at a price.
He had started drinking at the age of 14 and was sent home from a competition in Germany in 1987 for “excessive alcohol use and obstinate behaviour”. A teammate said: “When he’s drunk and you say the wrong word he’s going to hit you with his fists.”
His biographer Egon Thiener called Nykanen “a Jekyll and Hyde”. He said: “When sober, he’s one of the nicest and friendliest people I’ve ever met. When drunk, he’s dangerous and aggressive.”
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