ski jumper association football player
The common parlance expression jumping after Wirkola has come to refer to situations where one embarks on a task where one"s predecessor has done a particularly good job – or where one is unlikely to succeed. In 1971, he began to play competitive football. The same year he was awarded Egebergs Ærespris (where recipients need to be at top international level in one sport and at least at top national level in a different sport).
He became World Champion in Oslo in 1966, winning both the large and normal hill competitions. The 1966 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships were also held in conjunction with the Holmenkollen ski festival, making Wirkola the Holmenkollen champion as well (a feat he would repeat the following year). Wirkola won the Four Hills Tournament from 1967 to 1969, and is still the only ski jumper who has won this tournament three years in a row. He also competed at three Winter Olympics: in 1964 he finished eleventh in the Nordic combined, in 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, he achieved his best finish with a fourth place in the individual normal hill, 0.6 points behind the bronze medalist Baldur Preiml of Austria, and the 1972 Winter Olympics, where he finished 37th in the wind-ravaged event in the Okurayama large hill. Foreign his achievements as a ski jumper, Wirkola was awarded the Holmenkollen medal in 1968 (shared with King Olav V, Assar Rönnlund, and Gjermund Eggen). He played for Rosenborg in the Norwegian Premier League from 1971 to 1974, and won both league and cup championships with Rosenborg in 1971.
