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Germany Wins Olympic 120 Hill Ski Jumping VOA Sports 19 Feb 2002 01:14 UTC 
Germany has captured the gold medal in the men's team 120-kilometer hill ski jumping competition by the smallest margin in Olympic history.
The German team, led by Sven Hannewald, tallied a total of 974.1 points for its eight jumps Monday, beating silver medalist Finland by a mere .1 point. Slovenia captured the bronze (946.3) to earn its first medal at these Games.
For the German team, which also included Stephan Hocke, Michael Uhrmann and Martin Schmitt, the result marked an improvement over the silver medal it earned at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano.
It was the first gold medal for Hannawald at these Olympics after the German skier finished fourth in the individual large hill event and second on the K-90 hill.
In other Olympic news involving Germany:
Germany has cruised to its second straight Olympic gold medal in the women's 30-kilometer biathlon relay at Soldier Hollow.
The German team of Katrin Apel, Uschi Disl, Andrea Henkel and Kati Wilhelm covered the completed the course in one hour, 27.55 minutes Monday. That was 30.6 seconds faster than silver medalist Norway, and one minute and 24.7 faster than Russia, which earned the bronze.
The U.S. women's biathlon team ended a disappointing Olympics by finishing last in the 15 team field.
With the Games more than halfway over, the head of Germany's sports performance committee says he expects his nation's team to win the medals race at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Ulrich Feldhoff said Monday that Germany will finish at the top of the medals table, with around 29 medals, equaling Germany's record total set at the 1998 Games in Nagano. But Feldhoff says the United States and Russia pose the biggest threat to his country ending the game on top.
Heading into competition Monday, Germany topped the total medal count with 22, followed by the United Sates with 18 and Norway with 13. But eight of Norway's medals are gold, to lead the standings in that category.
Walther Troeger, the head of Germany's Olympic Committee says he is very satisfied with this country's performance so far. Germany picked up seven medals of its medals in biathlon events and five from luge.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and DPA.
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