Simon Ammann

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Simon Ammann
Personal information
Full name	Simon Ammann
Nickname	Simi
Date of birth	June 25, 1981 (1981-06-25) (age 26)
Place of birth	Grabs, Switzerland
Professional information
Club	RG Churfirsten
Skis	Elan
World Cup
Seasons	1997–
Wins	3
Podiums	14
Total podiums	17
Infobox last updated on:
August 2007

Simon Ammann (born June 25, 1981) is a Swiss ski jumper.

Ammann was born in Grabs, Switzerland to Margit and Hienrich Ammann and rasied in Unterwasser, Switzerland. He has two brothers and three sisters. He made his debut as a 16-year-old unknown during the 1997-1998 Ski jumping World Cup season. Ammann qualified for the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, where he finished 35th.

Before the 2002 Winter Olympics, he crashed and suffered injuries. In Salt Lake City, he surprised everyone by winning the individual gold medal in not just the short hill, but also the long hill event. Ammann was only the second person to accomplish this feat. (The first was Matti Nykänen in 1988.) Ammann quickly became a huge star in Switzerland and also made appearances on American talk shows, such as David Letterman. Much of his stardom can be credited to his uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter, a comparison Ammann personally disliked.

Ammann also won the ski jumping event at the Holmenkollen ski festival in 2002 and 2007. This would earn him the Holmenkollen medal in 2007 (Shared with Frode Estil, Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway).

He made his third Olympic appearance in 2006 in Turin. His nickname is "Simi".

Apart from his athletic career, Ammann is also a student of information technology and electrical engineering at ETH Zurich since 2006.

On February 24, 2007, he won his first medal at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships with a victory in the individual large hill in Sapporo. Ammann would follow this with a silver in the individual normal hill the following week.

Ammann currently lives in Schindellegi, Switzerland.

[edit] References

• FIS-Ski: Simon Ammann - statistics
• Holmenkollen medalists download (Norwegian)
• Holmenkollen winners since 1892 - click Vinnere for downloadable pdf file (Norwegian)

Awards
Preceded by André Bucher	Swiss Sportsman of the Year 2002	Succeeded by Roger Federer
Preceded by Andrus Veerpalu	Holmenkollen medal with Frode Estil, King Harald V, Queen Sonja, and Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset 2007	Succeeded by Incumbent

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