Career
Thomas Morgenstern is one of the biggest natural ski jumping talents in Austria. After winning three continental cup events (out of four starts), he made his ski jumping debut at the 2002–03 Four Hills Tournament. He finished 9th in Oberstdorf, 25th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 9th in Innsbruck and 6th in Bischofshofen, finishing up as 10th in the final ranking. Five days after the end of the tournament, he won his first World Cup jump, in Liberec, Czech Republic. In the following summer, he won the Ski jumping Grand Prix for his first time.
He continued his success well into the 2003–04 season. He was second overall to Sigurd Pettersen during most of the 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.
In the next season, Morgenstern won gold medals in both team events (normal hill and large hill) at the Nordic World Ski Championships.
During the 2006 Winter Olympics, he won the gold medals in the individual and team large hill competitions. Further, he won the bronze medal in the single event at the Ski-Flying World Championships in Bad Mitterndorf. By ending up as 5th, Morgenstern achieved his best ranking in the world cup so far.
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. As in 2003, Morgenstern won the Ski jumping Grand Prix.
At the beginning of the 2007–08 season, he won the first six competitions, which is an all-time record. 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. 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.
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.
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 on the Vikersundbakken 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.
As of 20 January 2012, Morgenstern has 22 World Cup victories, 3 Olympic gold medals, and 11 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals at world championships.
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