Austria dominate the Olympic team ski jumping

WHISTLER/VANCOUVER: Runaway favourites Austria won the Olympic ski jumping team event with ridiculous ease on Monday to earn some reward after disappointing performances in the two individual hill contests.

The Austrians, who had the top four-ranked jumpers in the team competition and won the event in 2006, captured the gold with a total of 1107.9 points after the eight jumps.

The Germans were in second place on 1035.8 points with the Norwegians in third on 1030.3.

The Austrians were so confident that they started celebrating even before team mate Gregor Schlierenzauer made the final jump. Schlierenzauer produced a momentous leap of 146.5 metres, easily the longest of the day.

The second he had completed a rather clumsy landing his team mates Thomas Morgenstern, Wolfgang Loitzl and Andreas Kofler ran out to congratulate him.

Austria led from the first round and ended with a record Olympic points total and a record margin of victory.