Polish sport mourns Mateusz Rutkowski. The former ski jumping star died on Sunday at the age of just 37.
As Polish media consistently report, Rutkowski died on Sunday as a result of a cardiac arrest. Further details are not yet known.
At the beginning of the millennium, Rutkowski was considered one of the greatest talents in the ski jumping circus. At the beginning of 2003, at the age of just 17, he first made headlines when he made his debut in the second-tier Continental Cup. In his first two competitions, Rutkowski finished in the points, finishing 20th and 12th.
Almost a year later, the Pole celebrated his first victory in the Continental Cup, which earned him a call-up to the World Cup team just a few days later. He got his first World Cup points there just a little later.
Ski jumping world champion in 2004
Rutkowski made even bigger headlines at the 2004 Nordic Junior World Championships in Stryn, Norway. There, on the normal hill, he left behind, among others, the Austrian Thomas Morgenstern, who was rated as much stronger, and won the competition with a clear 12.5 points lead. To date, Rutkowski is the only Polish jumper to win the prestigious title.
In the subsequent team competition he also won World Championship silver together with the Polish team.
However, Rutkowski’s career was no longer really successful after that – on the contrary. Numerous stories about escapades away from the hill circulated in the local media in the months following his World Cup triumph. The “new Malysz,” as he was dubbed by the Polish press, ultimately did not have the discipline to be successful in top-level sport.
The highly talented man ended his career in the summer of 2006. Ten years later he returned to the ski jumping business as a youth coach – away from the spotlight.