Poland’s Stoch wins normal hill

Krasnaya Polyana, Russia (SportsNetwork.com) – Polish ski jumper Kamil Stoch easily won the men’s normal hill event at the Sochi Olympics after posting the longest jump and highest score in both rounds Sunday.

Stoch, 26, scored 136 points on his last jump, which went 103.5 meters. He had 278 points overall on the two jumps — 12.7 points ahead of silver medalist Peter Prevc of Slovenia.

By comparison, 12.5 points separated Prevc and the 12th-place finisher.

Norway’s Anders Bardal finished third for the bronze, 1.2 points behind Prevc.

Austria’s Thomas Diethart was fourth and teammate Michael Hayboeck, who had the top score in qualifying Saturday, finished fifth.

Some of the sport’s heavy hitters finished well back.

Austria’s Thomas Morgenstern, who is competing despite suffering head and lung injuries in a crash last month, placed 14th. He is a three-time Olympic gold medalist in ski jumping.

Simon Ammann, the Swiss star who won double golds in the individual events at the 2002 and 2010 Olympics, ended 17th.

Americans Nicholas Alexander, Peter Frenette and Anders Johnson each qualified to jump Sunday but none of them made the final round. Canada’s Mackenzie Boyd- Clowes and Dusty Korek also were eliminated after their first jumps Sunday.

Women’s ski jumping will make its Olympic debut on Tuesday with a normal hill event.

Categorized in: Olympics