Thomas Morgenstern

Thomas Morgenstern
Morgenstern in 2014
Country	Austria
Born	(1986-10-30) 30 October 1986 (age 38) Spittal an der Drau, Austria
Height	1.84 m (6 ft 1⁄2 in)
Personal best	232 m (761 ft) Planica, 19 March 2011
World Cup career
Seasons	2003–2014
Indiv. starts	245
Indiv. podiums	76
Indiv. wins	23
Team starts	31
Team podiums	31
Team wins	16
Overall titles	2 (2008, 2011)
Four Hills titles	1 (2011)
Nordic titles	1 (2006)
Medal record Men's ski jumping Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 3 1 0 World Championships 8 2 1 Ski Flying World Championships 3 0 2 Total 14 3 3 Olympic Games 2006 Turin Individual LH 2006 Turin Team LH 2010 Vancouver Team LH 2014 Sochi Team LH World Championships 2005 Oberstdorf Team NH 2005 Oberstdorf Team LH 2007 Sapporo Team LH 2009 Liberec Team LH 2011 Oslo Individual NH 2011 Oslo Team NH 2011 Oslo Team LH 2013 Val di Fiemme Team LH 2011 Oslo Individual LH 2013 Val di Fiemme Mixed team NH 2007 Sapporo Individual NH Men's ski flying World Championships 2008 Oberstdorf Team 2010 Planica Team 2012 Vikersund Team 2004 Planica Team 2006 Bad Mitterndorf Individual
Updated on 10 February 2016.

Thomas Morgenstern (born 30 October 1986) is an Austrian former ski jumper who competed from 2002 to 2014. He is one of the most successful ski jumpers of all time, having won the World Cup overall title twice with 23 individual wins, the Four Hills Tournament and the Nordic Tournament once each, eight World Championship gold medals (one individual, seven team), and three Winter Olympic gold medals (one individual, two team).

After winning gold medal individually in Oslo 2011.

Andreas Kofler, Thomas Morgenstern, Adam Małysz in Oslo 2011 – medal ceremony (men individual, normal hill)

Ski flying world cup in Vikersund 2011

During the team competition on 2 March 2013.

Individual competition on World Championship 2013 in Val di Fiemme on large hill.

Medal ceremony at World Championship 2013 in Val di Fiemme (team competition).

Career

Morgenstern began his ski jumping career in the Continental Cup, winning three events out of four attempts.^[1] He made his senior level World Cup debut at the 2002–03 Four Hills Tournament, where he finished 9th in Oberstdorf, 25th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 9th in Innsbruck and 6th in Bischofshofen; this placed him 10th overall in the final tournament standings. Five days after the end of the tournament, he won his first World Cup event in Liberec.^[2] In the following summer, he won the Ski jumping Grand Prix for the first time.^[3]

At the start of the 2003–04 season, Morgenstern suffered a violent accident in Kuusamo, in which he was hit by a gust of wind just after takeoff, forcing him to flip over in mid-air and land hard on his back.^[4] He only sustained minor injuries, and managed to recover quickly to continue his success. He was second overall to Sigurd Pettersen during most of that season's Four Hills tournament, finally ending up in fourth place. He won his first team medal with a 3rd place at the Ski-Flying World Championships.^[5]

In the next season, Morgenstern won gold medals in both team events (normal hill and large hill) at the Nordic World Ski Championships.^[6]

During the 2006 Winter Olympics, he won the gold medals in the individual and team large hill competitions.^[7] Further, he won the bronze medal in the single event at the Ski-Flying World Championships in Bad Mitterndorf.^[5] By ending up as 5th, Morgenstern achieved his best ranking in the world cup so far.^[2]

In the 2006–07 season, he won the large hill team event at the Nordic World Ski Championships. Further, by reaching the 3rd place in the normal hill event he won his first individual medal at world championships.^[6] As in 2003, Morgenstern won the Ski jumping Grand Prix.^[3]

At the beginning of the 2007–08 season, he won the first six competitions, which is an all-time record.^[8] With these six wins he also tied the record for most wins in a row, previously set by Janne Ahonen, Matti Hautamäki and Gregor Schlierenzauer.^[9] In early 2008, Morgenstern won a gold medal at the Ski-Flying World Championships in Oberstdorf. Morgenstern won the world cup for the first time, 233 points ahead of Gregor Schlierenzauer.

During the 2008–09 season, Morgenstern could not win any competition, but won a team gold medal at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec.^[6]

The 2009–10 world cup again was very modest with only two victories. However, Morgenstern won gold medals in the team events at the Ski-Flying World Championships and the 2010 Winter Olympics.^[5][7]

The season 2010–11 again started very successful by winning four of the first six competitions. Morgenstern further won the Four Hills Tournament for the first time in this season. In January 2011, he won his first ski flying event in Harrachov, and fixed his second victory of the ski jumping world cup with a 5th place at the ski flying competition in Vikersund on 13 February. At the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oslo he won gold on the normal hill. It was his first gold medal in an individual event at world championships. In the following he further won gold medals in the team events (normal hill and large hill), both times together with Andreas Kofler, Martin Koch and Gregor Schlierenzauer, as well as the silver medal in the individual large-hill event.

On 10 January 2014, he suffered serious head injuries during training for the ski flying event in Bad Mitterndorf.^[10] He recovered in time to take part in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he placed 14th in the normal hill and 40th in the large hill men's individual ski jumping events.^[11]

On 26 September 2014, Morgenstern announced his retirement from competitive ski jumping.^[12] His last jump in competitive ski jumping was when he won the silver medal with the Austrian team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

World Cup

Standings

Season	Overall	4H	SF	NT
2002/03	20	10	N/A	9
2003/04	6	4	N/A	9
2004/05	7		N/A	8
2005/06	5	20	N/A
2006/07	6	4	N/A	17
2007/08			N/A	6
2008/09	7	8	18	8
2009/10		6	18
2010/11				N/A
2011/12	7		7	N/A
2012/13	25	16	—	N/A
2013/14	15		—	N/A

Wins

No.	Season	Date	Location	Hill	Size
1	2002/03	11 January 2003	Liberec	Ještěd A K120 (night)	LH
2	2005/06	10 March 2006	Lillehammer	Lysgårdsbakken HS134 (night)	LH
3	2007/08	1 December 2007	Kuusamo	Rukatunturi HS142 (night)	LH
4		8 December 2007	Trondheim	Granåsen HS131 (night)	LH
5		9 December 2007	Trondheim	Granåsen HS131	LH
6		13 December 2007	Villach	Villacher Alpenarena HS98	NH
7		14 December 2007	Villach	Villacher Alpenarena HS98 (night)	NH
8		22 December 2007	Engelberg	Gross-Titlis-Schanze HS137	LH
9		30 December 2007	Oberstdorf	Schattenbergschanze HS137 (night)	LH
10		2 February 2008	Sapporo	Ōkurayama HS134 (night)	LH
11		3 February 2008	Sapporo	Ōkurayama HS134	LH
12		8 February 2008	Liberec	Ještěd A HS134 (night)	LH
13	2009/10	6 January 2010	Bischofshofen	Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze HS140 (night)	LH
14		16 January 2010	Sapporo	Ōkurayama HS134 (night)	LH
15	2010/11	4 December 2010	Lillehammer	Lysgårdsbakken HS138 (night)	LH
16		5 December 2010	Lillehammer	Lysgårdsbakken HS138	LH
17		17 December 2010	Engelberg	Gross-Titlis-Schanze HS137	LH
18		18 December 2010	Engelberg	Gross-Titlis-Schanze HS137	LH
19		30 December 2010	Oberstdorf	Schattenbergschanze HS137 (night)	LH
20		4 January 2011	Innsbruck	Bergiselschanze HS130	LH
21		9 January 2011	Harrachov	Čerťák HS205	FH
22	2011/12	6 January 2012	Bischofshofen	Paul-Ausserleitner-Schanze HS140 (night)	LH
23	2013/14	14 December 2013	Titisee-Neustadt	Hochfirstschanze HS142	LH

Honours

• Gold Merit Badge of Austria: 2004
• Grand Decoration of Austria: 2006
• Austrian Sportspersonality of the year: 2008, 2011
• Part of the Austrian Sportsteam of the year, together with the Austrian ski jumping team: 2005, 2008, 2009, 2011
• Carinthian Sportspersonality of the year: 4 times, including 2008, 2010

Personal life

In 2013 he left his girlfriend of 10 years and went on vacation to Hawaii with his new girlfriend, a physiotherapist.^[13] He has a daughter named Lily (born 26 December 2012) with his ex-fiancee and twins named Sara and Tina (born 2021) with his current partner Sabrina.^[14]

References

1. Morgenstern's FIS-Ski Continental Cup Results Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
2. Morgenstern's FIS-Ski World Cup Results Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
3. Morgenstern's FIS-Ski Grand Prix Results Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
4. "Morgenstern hospitalised after another crash". Gulf Times. 2014-01-10. Retrieved 2014-10-12.
5. Morgenstern's FIS-Ski-Flying World Championships Results
6. Morgenstern's FIS-Ski World Championships Results
7. Morgenstern's Olympic Winter Games Results
8. Der Standard: Und wieder Morgenstern, 14 December 2007 (German)
9. Der Standard: Küttel nimmt Morgenstern den Druck, 23 December 2007 (German)
10. "Schädelverletzung bei Morgenstern". orf.at. 10 January 2014.
11. sochi2014.com/en/athlete-thomas-morgenstern
12. "Three-time Olympic ski jump champ Morgenstern retires". foxsports.com. 26 September 2014.
13. Morgenstern dumps partner and three-month-old baby for affair with massage therapist Austrian Independent, 19 April 2013
14. [1] Heute.at, 20th June 2023

External links

• Thomas Morgenstern at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation
• Thomas Morgenstern at Olympics.com
• Thomas Morgenstern at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Official website

Awards
Preceded by Thomas Vanek Jürgen Melzer	Austrian Sportsman of the year 2008 2011	Succeeded by Wolfgang Loitzl Marcel Hirscher