Alert: Nukes Away!

By John Leo

As the crowd chanted "Matti! Matti!" and his countrymen waved blue-and-white Finnish flags, the superbrat of ski jumping shot down the runway at 54 m.p.h. Body tucked, hands behind his back, he soared off as though someone had slipped a piece of hot charcoal into his ski boot.

It was a typical Matti Nykanen performance: an explosive takeoff, an eerily long floating descent and -- as of right -- a first-place finish. The boyish Nykanen, 24, punched the air in triumph and seemed to ignore the awed congratulations of Pavel Ploc and Jiri Malec, the Czechs who finished a distant second and third. The decisive win in the 70-meter competition gave Nykanen his first gold at Calgary, with a shot at an unprecedented second and third this week in the weather-delayed 90-meter individual and team events. It also made him the first jumper in some 50 years to finish first in more than one Olympics.

In his two runs before an anxious crowd of 52,000 onlookers at Canada Olympic Park, Matti "Nukes" produced nearly identical jumps of 294 ft. That gave him an astonishing 17-point margin over Ploc, who scored closer to the tenth-place jumper than he did to Nykanen. It confirmed the suspicion that % there are two classes of jumpers in the world today: Nykanen and everyone else. Said his coach, Matti Pulli: "He is the best jumper in the past 100 years, the best ever in the world." The coach then added matter-of-factly, "Matti was jumping normally today, nothing more than that. He can jump farther."

The "Flying Finn" is probably the most single-minded and obsessive jumper as well as the best. Nykanen first slid off the roof of his childhood home at 7, got his first skis two years later, and did more jumps at 12 than most of his competitors do now. "When I met him, Matti was making 3,000 to 4,000 jumps a year," said Paavo Komi, a professor who worked with the budding star in his native Jyvaskyla. "Now he jumps nearly 6,000 times each year, in contrast to 3,000 to 4,000 for most jumpers." Part of this is the dogged will to win. The rest, Nykanen says, is pure joy: "You must experience the feeling. It feels like flying."

Since 1981, when he won his first international junior championship, the flashy Finn has piled up 1,479 World Cup points, some 400 more than the nearest competitor. At Sarajevo, he won gold in the 90 meter and silver in the 70 meter.

Typically, Nykanen shows superb sail but flawed form. On takeoff his arms may flail, and in landing he often misses the perfect telemark position: back straight and knees bent, with one leg considerably in front of the other. But these faults stem from his unique method of reading and reacting to the wind, sacrificing grace for distance. The antistyle may also owe something to Nykanen's fierce personality and determination to do everything his own way. At any rate, it does not seem to cost him style points. Judges are apparently willing to overlook his less than perfect form, presumably because the greatest ski jumper in the world should not be put down on narrow aesthetic grounds.

Nykanen is not especially fast coming down the runway, but his lift-off and soaring ability are legendary. On the circuit, some jumpers say his broad, light body acts as a human sail. American Jumper Mike Holland thinks the Finn has "bird hormones. Seriously, he has just the right technique and feather- like physique. He floats through the air. When you're jumping, little differences in your technique reflect large differences in your results. Everything he does right gets magnified."

In Finland, Nykanen reigns as a national hero, despite his moderately checkered past. A dropout after the ninth grade, he has a history of drinking . and angry confrontations. He trashed a disco, stole beer from a kiosk, and twice was kicked off the Finnish team for bad behavior. Married in late 1986 and the father of a five-month-old son, Nukes is said to be a mellower man these days and one eager to assist teammates. Since last summer, he said, he is "not feeling hyper."

Last weekend, as the 90-meter competition was postponed because of howling winds, Nykanen admitted that the delay was making him tense. "I don't want to criticize the organizers for not putting up windscreens," he said, "but the wind blows hard here." Still, it will take more than wind to psyche him out. Ski experts say the only winds comparable to Calgary's unpredictable gusts are at Lahti hill in Finland. That is where Nykanen trained.

With reporting by Brian Cazeneuve/Calgary