Lars Bystøl

Lars Bystøl (born 4 December 1978 in Voss, Hordaland) is a Norwegian ski jumper who has won one Olympic gold medal, one World Cup event and two FIS Nordic World Ski Championships bronze medals in the team large hill events (2003, 2005). Bystøl has also had several alcohol-related episodes that has made the front pages of Norwegian newspapers. In 2000 he was sent home from a continental cup competition in Insbruck after a party at new years eve, and later that year he was caught DUI with a 2.38‰ [http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2003/11/05/382673.html] blood alcohol content. In 2003 he fell into the ocean after he was fighting after some heavy drinking. His alcoholism was so bad that it caused Bystøl to be kicked off of the ski jumping team in 2004 though he did fight his way back to the team, and has come back very strong.

Bystøl won his first, and so far only, World Cup event on January 4, 2006 by winning the third event of the Four Hills Tournament at Bergisel (Innsbruck). Eleven days later, Bystøl won a gold medal in the team event at the 19th Ski-flying World Championships in Kulm, Austria.

Bystøl continued the World Cup season by placing between 10th and 20th in the next three individual events, before going to the 2006 Winter Olympics. He retained his top-15 position in the World Cup standings, which enabled him to qualify for the normal hill of the Olympics despite being disqualified in the qualifying run [ [http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2006/JP/3080/2006JP3080RLQ.pdf NH Individual Competition - Qualifying] , from fis-ski.com] . Once there, he finished sixth in the first jump, but held on with 103.5 meter second jump to win Olympic gold.

Bystøl finished 13th in the 2005-06 Overall World Cup standings.

References

*FIS|S=JP|ID=8315|name=Lars Bystoel
* [http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2003/11/05/382673.html]

Further reference