Martin Schmitt

• Martin Schmitt won the overall World Cup in 1998/99 and 1999/2000.
• At the 1999 World Championships he won large-hill individual and team gold.
• In 2001 he repeated the large-hill golds and added normal-hill individual silver and team bronze.
• Germany won Olympic team silver in 1998 and 2010 and gold in 2002.
• He won individual silver at the 2002 Ski Flying World Championships.
• His World Cup career continued through 2013/14.

Martin Schmitt was one of the leading German ski jumpers of the late 1990s and early 2000s. He won the overall World Cup in the 1998/99 and 1999/2000 seasons, a standings title that rewards consistency across competitions at different hills. He finished second overall in 2000/01, extending his run near the top of the sport.

At the 1999 World Championships in Ramsau, Schmitt won individual large-hill gold and team gold for Germany. In Lahti in 2001 he again won the individual and team large-hill events, and added individual silver and team bronze on the normal hill. Those results spanned two hill sizes and both individual and team formats. In ski jumping, distance and execution contribute to an individual result, while the team event adds the scores of each national team member.

Schmitt’s Olympic medals came in the team event: silver in 1998 and 2010, with gold in 2002. He also won individual silver at the Ski Flying World Championships in Harrachov in 2002. Ski flying extended his medal record beyond normal and large hills to a format built around longer flights. His career remained active through the 2013/14 World Cup season, long after his peak years, and included later work as a television expert.

Germany’s Olympic team gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 was a defining point in the national team’s success. Schmitt’s own record combines two overall season titles, four world championship titles, Olympic team medals and ski-flying silver. These achievements place him among the notable ski legends. In team ski jumping, each athlete’s jump contributes to the total; the discipline is part of ski jumping and its Olympic medals are decided at the Winter Olympics.